WATER RIGHTS, CHAPTER 8, GRAMPS IS GONE

            

         This was the day both Hannah and Luke would share their secrets. They’d agreed to meet at the waterfall in the afternoon and both were looking forward to telling the other their secrets…Luke with some trepidation and Hannah with excitement.

          Before the day could get properly underway, however, it turned into a morning of fear, sorrow and unmitigated misery, at least for Hannah. When she’d returned from the barn, she’d found gramps laying on the kitchen floor. His coffee cup had broken and cut his hand, so there was blood as well. While kneeling to check for a pulse, she dialed 911.

          “Hello, please, it’s my gramps. Can you send someone fast? I think he’s had a heart attack. Hurry, please.” She knew she didn’t have to recite where the medics should go from gramps’ last episode. It was all there in the phone database, she guessed.

          She sat down on the floor and pulled gramps’ head into her lap. She tried hard not to cry, but gramps looked so old and frail, she could barely keep herself from screaming because of the fear and sadness she was feeling. Hannah stroked his forehead, murmuring words of love, begging her gramps to please be okay.

          This was how Luke found them just moments before a medic truck screamed into the driveway. When the EMTs entered the kitchen, Luke pulled Hannah up from the floor and held her while the men did their work. Finally, one of them said, “It looks as though your gramps has had a stroke. We’ll get him to the hospital as quickly as possible.” He looked at Luke and asked, “You can bring her in, yes.”

          “Yes, we’ll be right behind you.” Luke responded.

          Hannah took a deep breath and grabbed the standing EMT by the arm. “He’s going to be okay isn’t he?” she asked, her fingers clenching tight. “Please tell me he’s going to be okay. He has to be okay.”

          The EMT took her hand in his and squeezed it. “We’re doing all we can and the doctors at the hospital will be able to tell more. Now, please, we have to get going. The sooner we get to the hospital, the better it will be.”

          “Hannah, while they get gramps loaded, you gather up what you think you’ll need at the hospital.” Luke said and gave her a push toward the stairs. “You don’t need to come back here until you’re ready. I can come back and take care of the animals later. You can stay as long as gramps needs you.”

          Hannah had no idea what she’d need, so she just grabbed her backpack, stuffed the book she was reading inside, and was ready to leave before the medics raced down the ranch road with the siren blaring. In the truck with Luke, she could only think of her gramps and prayed so hard that he would be okay. He had to be okay. What would she do without him? And, she was going to give him his first great-grandchild. He had to live for that, didn’t he? How could this have happened so quickly? She’d only been in the barn for a few minutes. He’d been fine when she’d danced out of the kitchen. Oh, why was this happening now when she’d been so very happy?

          At the hospital, they found gramps had been moved into the ICU. No one could tell her anything besides the fact they had to run tests. When they told Hannah and Luke what they were doing and planned to do, it sounded like they were reciting the alphabet. The afternoon seemed to pass with the speed of a river that was just about frozen. Hannah paced and sat and barely talked to Luke. She just couldn’t talk, she had to concentrate all her energy on her gramps getting better.

          Eventually, Luke said, “It’s getting late, so I’d better head back to the ranch. The livestock will need to be seen to. I can come right back though. I don’t want you to stay here alone.”

          “Oh Luke, thank you. And, you don’t need to come back because you’ll only have to leave again to take care of things in the morning. I’ll call you if I learn anything or if I need you to come get us.”

          Luke held Hannah and hugged her hard. “It’s going to be just fine, I know it. You hold onto that Hannah.” Privately, mostly because of the bits and pieces he’d heard the doctors and nurses saying, he didn’t think Thomas had much of a chance. If he made it through the night, then maybe, but it wasn’t likely. He didn’t want Hannah to be alone if Thomas died. “I’ll be back, no matter what, just as soon as I can. Okay?” With another hard hug, Luke let go, turned around and marched out of the hospital saying his own prayers that Thomas would survive until he was able to be there with Hannah.

          It was hard waiting and the minutes passed like hours, especially since they wouldn’t allow Hannah to be with her gramps for more than 10 minutes at a time. And that time wasn’t all that helpful because of all the machines that seemed to tether him to the bed. She’d hold his hand and it was so cold. She wanted to climb up on the bed and snuggle with him, give him some of her warmth, whisper in his ear all the things she felt welling up inside her. Ten minutes didn’t provide near enough of the time Hannah felt like she needed.

          Finally, very late in the afternoon, the doctor came to talk to her and told her he didn’t hold out much hope. Her gramps had definitely had a stroke. They could perform surgery, but it wouldn’t leave him in the same or in better condition than he’d been before. He’d most likely need round-the-clock care and be confined to a wheelchair or bed. That was if she wanted them to do surgery. Hannah asked the doctor if she could spend more than the allotted 10 minutes with gramps before she had to give him an answer. He agreed and told the nurses his decision.

          In the room with gramps, Hannah moved wires and cables around until she was able to nestle on the bed beside her gramps. She put one arm across his chest and pulled him as tight as everything would allow. Then, she let all the words that had been choking her to well up, to spew forth in a quiet whisper.

          “Ah Gramps, I’d so hoped and prayed we’d have so much more time together. You’ve been such a huge part of my life, taught me so much and there’s so much I want to share with you still. The doctor told me he can do surgery and repair some of the damage from the stroke, but you’ll be in a wheelchair or confined to bed and I know you’d hate that. You’d hate not being able to wander out to the barn to give Sampson and Onyx some apples and pats on their faces. You’d miss being able to see the way they seem to smile and their eyes light up when they see you coming.”

          Hannah paused to swallow back the tears that wanted to gush from her eyes and destroy her ability to talk. “So, Gramps, I think I’ve made the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make in my life. I won’t let the surgeon operate. I won’t let you become an invalid because I know you’d hate being one. Still, it’s hard to imagine getting up every morning and not having you in the kitchen, to imagine not seeing you at the dinner table, to see my life without you in it every single day.

          “And gramps, there’s something so important I’e been wanting to share with you and now I wish I’d climbed up on the roof and shouted the news so you’d at least know. I really hope you can hear me when I tell you this. I’m carrying your great-grandchild. I’m sure you’ve guessed that Luke and I, well, we haven’t exactly told each other we love each other, but I know we do. At least I know I love him. And I know you care for him too. I know if you could wake up, you’d hug me, give me your blessing and walk me down the aisle to become his wife. And, okay, he hasn’t asked me yet, but I know he will. Knowing that is the only thing that’s helping me hold all this together, helping me make this difficult decision. Oh gramps, I so wish we could actually talk to each other about this.”

          Hannah allowed herself to cry then. She didn’t sob and shake and scream the way she really wanted to but cried softly, her tears wetting Thomas’ hospital gown.

          At first, Hannah thought she imagined the movement she felt on her back. She held her breath and there it was again, a soft touch, and she knew her gramps was trying to communicate. She raised up and found her gramps’ eyes barely open. She felt another even softer movement on her back and faintly heard her gramps say, “Good man. Bless.” Before his eyes closed again and his hand fell limply to the bed.

          Hannah flew out to the nurses’ station, “He spoke. He opened his eyes. You have to go help him.”

          Everyone flew into action and Hannah paced the hall while she waited. Eventually the doctor returned and the news wasn’t good. Besides the blood clot in his brain, Gramps now had a brain bleed, so it was only a matter of time before enough blood flowed and his body shut down.

Hannah knew without a doubt that her gramps’ last efforts to reassure her had been more than his body had been able to support. When Luke arrived back at the hospital late that evening, he found Hannah sitting in the room with her gramps body. Her eyes were red and swollen and she tightly clutched Thomas’ hand in hers.

Luke had to pry her fingers loose and then pull Hannah to her feet before he could wrap his arms around her. She began to cry again, sobbing against his chest, her arms clamped around him like a vice. In between sobs and hiccoughs, she muttered, “Luke, what am I going to do without Gramps? He’s my last link to family. How am I going to keep on? Oh, I cannot bear it. I can’t stand being so alone.”

“It’s okay Hannah. I’m here. I’ll help you. We’ll be fine, just you wait and see. Your gramps was a good man and I’m sure he made sure you’ll be taken care of and if he didn’t, well I’ll take care of you.”

Eventually, Hannah stopped crying and raised the face of an overtired child to Luke. He began to lead her from the room when she pulled her hand free and returned to the bed. She leaned over, held Thomas’ head between her hands and gave his forehead a soft sweet kiss. Then, she turned back to Luke and held out her hand. He took it and led her out of the hospital and to his truck.

That night, they slept together in Hannah’s bed. They didn’t make love, but she wrapped herself around him so tightly he was afraid to move because he was sure that would wake her up and she was exhausted. Laying there, Luke wished he’d been able to tell her about Jamison, but that would now have to wait until after the funeral. He couldn’t bear to upset her any further right now.

He felt Hannah’s lips stretch into a big smile. She was dreaming and it was a wonderful dream. She held Luke’s child and her Gramps was leaning down to offer his finger to the baby who reached up to grab it. It was a wonderful dream and she allowed it to deeply comfort her because that’s the way it would have been, should have been.