“And we have no control over the schedule. They say she’s getting a treatment at ten and then nothing happens until noon and we don’t know how much time we’re supposed to fill up before they take her. When are they going to come to take Emily to physical therapy?” I asked.
“It was supposed to be an hour ago,” Kari said, exasperated.
“How are we supposed to know when to get her ready? I mean, she’s sleeping!” I said, simmering with anger and ready to take it out on the next person who came along.
I sensed someone at the door. It was Nurse Karli. Who knew how long she had been standing there? She went to Emily, going through her routine of checking her vitals and consulting her chart. Something about the brusque way she entered the room chastened Kari and me, like she had caught us doing something we were not supposed to be doing.
Nurse Karli looked up from checking Emily’s IV lines.
“I know I’m stepping outside my bounds to say this, but I’m going to say it anyway,” Nurse Karli began. “You have to take care of your marriage.”
We had nothing to say.
“I see it all the time here. Cancer takes a horrible toll on a family and if your marriage has any weaknesses, it’s going to break it apart. You two need to remain strong. Many marriages don’t survive a child’s cancer, and then the child suffers even more,” she said. “If you are fighting and angry and if your communication breaks down, then she starts missing appointments, and then you start fighting about that. You need to be a team, or it will get worse for her. You know how much she needs both of you.”
I thought Kari and I were doing pretty good, but I also knew Nurse Karli had our best interests in mind.
“Do you have someone coming to visit today?” she asked.
“My dad’s coming around six p.m.,” Kari said.
“Well then, you guys are going out on a date.”
“We can’t leave Emily,” I said.
“He’s right,” Kari said. “It scares her when we leave.”
“You’re going out on a date,” Nurse Karli insisted. “I know this great little Italian restaurant, Fenicci’s of Hershey, only a few blocks’ walk away, where the owner takes great care of every couple I send his way. You better tell your dad, Kari. I’m going to go make a reservation for you at six thirty tonight.”
Gotta love that Nurse Karli. Sometimes people have to take you by the shoulders and shake you to wake you up, and it takes a lot of courage to do that.
As six o’clock approached, the room was very busy. Miss Em was sitting up straight and alert, with art supplies close by her bed, and a few special items she’d asked her mom to get from the bag where they stored the scissors and stickers and such. Kari was doing something or other in the bathroom that was taking a pretty long time. At six on the dot, Pappy Rob arrived clutching the tablet he drew on and another bag of supplies from the art store.
“Miss Em, your student is here,” he said, waving to me.
“And you’re right on time!” said Emily. “Here, sit down right here.”
“I was trying to practice since the last lesson but I think I forgot some of what you taught me,” he said.
Pappy Rob opened his notebook to a page with some half-drawn houses.
“See, I was pretty good with the walls and what you taught me about the roof, but I wasn’t so great at these windows,” Pappy Rob explained.
“That’s okay,” Emily replied. “We can start all over from the beginning and we can spend more time on the windows.”
“You know, Miss Em, you got me thinking about the windows,” Pappy Rob said. He fished something out of the art store bag. “I thought maybe we could put glitter in them so they would look different from the rest of the house.”
“Oooh!” Emily exclaimed, taking the glitter sticks in hand. “And we can fill the sky around the house with glitter, just like the stars! Thank you, Pappy.”
The bathroom door opened and there stood Kari, beautiful as the day we met. She had fixed her hair and done her makeup, and she was wearing a necklace I gave her. We were going on a date, and she wanted to make it special. I loved that and I loved her beauty. Not just how beautiful she looks, but the beauty that comes from within her and touches everything she does.
Fenicci’s was only a few blocks away and it was a pleasant summer evening, so Kari and I decided to walk there.
I took her hand. I’m not much for romantic gestures, but I have learned a lot about this part of life from Kari.
When we met, I was lightly attached to the world, thinking I hadn’t much of a future. I’d just received the difficult news about my Crohn’s disease from the doctor who said there wasn’t anything he could do for me. I’d sought out that specialist at Johns Hopkins, and when Kari and I met, I’d just had that surgery. My life was just my illness. I would go to work and come home exhausted, spending most of my time at home. I wasn’t interested in dating until I knew if I was going to live, because I didn’t think it was fair to court a girl with the possibility of a marriage when I didn’t know if I would be alive in a few years. Then Amy, a friend of mine from high school, said she had a stepsister she thought I’d like. I was just starting to
