Hannah’s Gift: Lessons from a Life Fully Lived - Maria Housden

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      WILL WAS CURLED UP ON MY LAP, OUR ARMCHAIR touching the side of Hannah’s bed. His blond crew cut tickled the bottom of my chin. His body had been long and solid from the day he was born, but it was his soft green eyes that most people noticed first and remembered.

      Hannah was watching us from the bed, propped against a pile of pillows. A plastic line ran from her arm to an IV pole. She had spread her pink blanket over her legs and was wearing a rhinestone crown and her pink-flowered “robe j’s.”

      I cleared my throat. The weight of the moment crushed against my chest.

      “Hannah, the doctors have figured out why you are feeling so sick. There is a lump in your tummy called a tumor. A tumor happens sometimes when a few of the cells in a person’s body grow the wrong way and don’t do what they’re supposed to do. The doctors are going to take it out, and then give you medicines to try to make sure the bad cells don’t come back.”

      “Is it going to hurt?” Hannah asked, her brow wrinkled and her lips pursed into a worried pout. I paused. In the past, I had often coped with difficult situations by glossing over them, trying to find something good in them, praying that if I could avoid the truth long enough, it would go away. This time, though, I wanted Will and Hannah to be able to trust me. I couldn’t start lying to them now.

      “Yes, Hannah, it probably will hurt, but the doctors and nurses are going to do everything they can to make it hurt as little as possible. They have special medicines that will make you sleep while they take the lump out, and other medicines that will help your body rest while it gets better.”

      “I don’t want to sleep. I’m not tired!!” Hannah protested.

      “You don’t have to sleep now,” Will said gently, “only when they take the lump out. Right, Mom?” he asked, turning to me.

      I smiled and nodded.

      “Oh. That’s okay.” Hannah sighed, sounding relieved.

      “Mom.” Will was still looking at me, his eyes filling with tears. “Is a tumor the same thing as cancer?”

      “We don’t know yet, Will,” I said, starting to cry. “The doctors can’t be sure until they take it out and look at the cells under a microscope.”

      Hannah was watching us silently.

      “If it’s bad news you’ll tell us, right, Mom?” Will asked.

      Hannah sat straight up and looked into my eyes without blinking. I took a breath. I couldn’t help wishing that Claude had been able to be here with me, but he had told me he didn’t trust himself to know what to say. I appreciated his honesty, and I also knew that if ever there was a time when the two of us had to respect our differences, this was it. We were like two people in a one-man life raft in the middle of a dark ocean.

      Will and Hannah were still waiting for my answer.

      “Yes, Will,” I said. “Even if it’s bad news, I’ll tell you the truth.”

      Hannah smiled and leaned back into her pillows.

      “Thanks, Mom,” Will said, flinging his arms around my neck.

      “Mommy, I love you,” Hannah said.

      “I love you both,” was all I could say.

       Love in the Dark

      OUR WORLD HAD SHRUNK TO THE SIZE OF A HOSPITAL floor, but I didn’t mind. My brain was busy replacing no longer needed facts, such as the cost of a package of diapers, with new ones, such as the proper doses of certain medications; it didn’t have room for much else.

      Hannah was restless. We decided to go for a stroll through our new neighborhood. As she swung her legs over the side of the bed, I lunged to untangle the IV tube from the toe of her shoe before her foot hit the floor.

      “Wait a minute, Missy,” I said, leaning over to unplug the IV pump. The unit began to beep. I pushed the “silence” button and wound the power cord around the pole.

      “Hurry up, Mommy,” Hannah exclaimed, hopping from one foot to the other. “I hear Baby Shondra crying. I think she wants her mommy.”

      I wheeled the IV pole away from the wall and checked to make sure the tube wasn’t caught on anything.

      “Okay, we’re ready,” I said.

      Hannah held my hand in one of hers, and with the other lifted the edge of her nightgown like a princess, to keep the hem from dragging on the floor. We walked slowly as I maneuvered the awkward equipment into the hallway and followed our usual route. Turning right out of her room, we strolled past the supply closet and the conference room, stopping in front of the open doors of the pediatric intensive care unit. It was empty now, but not for long.

      “Remember, Hannah, here’s where you’re going to wake up after your surgery tomorrow.”

      Hannah took a couple of steps into the room. I followed. Respirators, monitors, breathing tubes, and carts of medical supplies lined the walls. The room smelled like an emergency. It was hard for me to imagine Hannah there. I forced myself to do it.

      “You’ll be in one of these beds, and I’ll be sleeping next to you in the big blue chair. Some tubes will be connected to your body to help you breathe, and some to help you sleep. There will be lots of beeping and other noises. A nurse will be with us all the time to make sure everything is okay.”

      “I want Nurse Katie or Nurse Amy,” Hannah said, “and I want to wear my red shoes to surgery. Be sure to tell the doctors that.”

      “I’ll tell them, Hannah, but I’m not sure they can do it.”

      “Well, that’s not fair,” she cried, stomping her foot on the linoleum floor. “Surgery has too many rules. I can’t eat dinner. I can’t wear my robe j’s. I can’t wear my red shoes. That’s not fair,” she repeated.

      “I see what you mean, Hannah. That is a lot of rules. I’ll tell them what you said and see what they can do.”

      We continued our walk; past the playroom, around the corner, stopping briefly to choose a book from the library shelves, and then around the corner again. This was the busiest street in the neighborhood: room after room of sick children and their families. A few parents looked up as we passed, exchanging wan, dazed, or sympathetic glances with me. Each room was a story in itself. I never tried to figure out who was here for what. My own story was enough. Hannah’s pace quickened. I struggled to keep up, the IV pole clattering along beside me. The nurses exclaimed in unison when they saw Hannah coming.

      “Baby Shondra has been missing you,” Nurse Patty called from behind the desk.

      A tiny baby was lying in a bassinet in front of the nurses’ station, her cries lost in the flurry of activity. She was two months old, with translucent blue eyes, dark brown curls, and pursed rosebud lips. She had also been declared severely brain-damaged; she would never be able to see or hear.

      Her parents had explained to the nurses that they could not care for such a baby.

      The hospital had filed the necessary paperwork, but until a foster home was found, she slept in the hospital hall. Busy nurses fed, changed, rocked, and held her whenever they could. Mostly, when she wasn’t sleeping, Shondra cried.

      “It’s okay, Baby Shondra,” Hannah murmured, leaning over the edge of the bassinet, close to the baby’s screwed-up, bawling face. “Your mommy will be back soon. And guess what,” she added brightly, “I brought you something to read.”

      Shondra’s cries became whimpers. Hannah stroked Shondra’s cheeks and poked her finger through Shondra’s clenched fist. Shondra stopped crying. The nurses looked away as I lifted Shondra out of her bassinet. I knew that they weren’t supposed to allow me to pick her up, but they were grateful

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