For Love Of Jeremy

"For Love of Jeremy"
A true ghost story by Jamie Whitten

As I exited Mitchell Caverns into the bright sunlight with my step daughter and the other members of the tour I could only heave a heavy sigh. It was a bright and beautiful day so very opposite of my mood. In my heart was the heavy lead weighted pain. The tour of the cavern had been interesting enough, the stalactites and stalagmites had been enormous, but my son, who had always wanted to go into these caverns with us had not been there.

He had passed on two weeks previously. My husband and my step-daughter had taken me on this “ride” in hopes of lifting some of the gloom we all felt. We needed to breathe fresh air and to forget our loss for a while. However, Jeremy, my son had been blind and had always been attached to me by the elbow. I was aware of the fact that I didn't have to describe the sights to anyone in the minute detail as I had always done in the past, to make things vivid in his mind’s eye. I knew I wasn't the only one who had lost Jeremy, but I was the one who had lost an appendage. He had been more than my son in so many ways. He had been a constant companion and was the larger part of myself. He had always started the conversations with friends we ran into anywhere. Often, I was just the back drop to his doings. Now it was time to start taking center stage in my own life again and I wasn't sure of how or where to begin. I was more than just grieved, as if that wasn't enough, I was also very lost. Sometimes I was even unsure of how to function.

Venus, my stepdaughter, and I walked down the hill to meet Dale, my husband where
we had left him in the gift shop. He had been unable to go up the hill to the cave with us as he had post-polio syndrome and couldn't make the climb to the cavern. Thinking on that, I realized too that Jeremy wouldn't have been able to have made it up that hill in his later days. Between the breathing apparatus that had sustained him and before that, with just his declining energy levels he never would have been able to make the climb. The rocky paths would have made it unlikely that we could have gotten him up there. My mind reconciled the rest of me to the fact that even though Jeremy’s fondest wish had been to visit the cavern, he never would have been able to do it. I took in a deep breath and tried to put on my “happy face” and shove these thoughts from the front of my head as we entered the gift shop.

Dale, I’m sure could see that I was just barely holding on and quietly led us back off to the truck. Venus was prattling on as she often did. She could talk for hours and never have said anything at all, as annoying as this could be, at that moment the sound was almost comforting. It was something that was at least, “normal.”

Dale and Venus conversed, but I was lost in memories. My brain seemed to be
spilling over with all of the days in the past, all of the days that would now be gone forever. They played for me like a movie in my head, unbidden, but not entirely unwanted.

I remembered the day we first found out about Jeremy’s diabetes. It was later that we found that this was the simplest of his problems, so this was to be his first stay in a hospital. This one was for the regulating of his blood sugars and to train me to care for a diabetic child. I was terrified. I had never had a child stay the night in a hospital before and this was to be a two week stay. I started to talk and words were running like a water fall to this 4 year old. I started talking about how it wasn’t really a hospital, it was a children’s hospital with toys and things to play with. There would be games to play, nice nurses and other children to play with. Only I didn’t stop there I went on and on. I was trying to convince myself, more than him, that it would be alright as I readied the small blonde boy for his trip. In this process, I had stood him up on the bathroom counter so that he could see in the mirror to comb his own blonde hair as I brushed my own long red locks. He must have realized that I was frightened.

He said, “Mom,” to interrupt me, but I kept rattling on, so he tried again.

“Mom,” he said a bit louder and more firmly, but I kept on going. Though I was aware of him, my mind was in some race that it could not complete.

Finally, he turned, took my face in his little hands and turned my face to his. We were almost nose to nose and he almost shouted, “Mom!” Finally my torrent of words came to an end and he said, “You can take care of me, and the doctors can take care of me, but God has control of this betis thing, Okay?”

Tears rolled down my cheeks and I grabbed that little boy up and snuggled him.

“You’re right. Of course, my little good sir, you are so very right.” I kissed him on the forehead mussing the hair that he had just combed. He let out a disgusted sigh as I had just mussed his hair. That memory faded off into the distance, like a puff of smoke being blown away by the wind. It had been but the first of many horrors to come.

It was then that I noticed that we weren’t headed toward home. I looked over to Dale.
“Hon, I know I’m a little dyslexic, but isn’t home that way?” I pointed behind me.

“Yes, it is,” answered Dale grinning, “But I know this great place for dinner.”

“Ah,” I grinned too. Dale was being sneaky and that was often a good thing. I realized that he had turned on the radio and that Venus was actually quiet in the back seat.

The music lead me back to my reverie of thoughts and memories. Things that just seemed to filter through me, and I just allowed it.

My mind drifted to the next hospital visit. This visit they were trying to figure out why Jeremy was losing his sight. There was an optic nerve atrophy obviously not caused by the diabetes, but if it was not the culprit, what could be? Cat scans were run finding nothing. The doctors next wanted to see if Jeremy’s nerve bundle in his spine might be tethered at the tail bone. This would cause the nerves at the eye to pull back and become useless as he grew. To find this dye had to be run in, but if this was a tethered cord, to numb him at the normal spot could do damage to the nerve cord at the lower extremity, so this was why the dye was run in through a foramin (natural hole in the bone) near in the neck area. When I next saw Jeremy after the procedure the punctures were coverd with their mercurochrome paint looked like Jeremy had been bitten by a vampire. I had told him so.

We had been warned that the side affects of running the dye through this area could cause some seizures that day.

A nurse came in with a tray of food and asked Jeremy how he was feeling.

He said, “I don’t know.” As he put his hand to cover his eyes, “I feel strange.”

Alarmed she said, “What’s wrong.”

“I have this strange urge.. I think I want, I feel like.. I want…”

The nurse and I both braced ourselves for some kind of epileptic fit.

Jeremy removed his hand to the bed staring in our direction and did a Dracula impersonation, “I vant to drink your blud.”

The scene in my head changed to a time before all of that. I was pregnant with Jeremy’s sister Rachel. It was a time before any of Jeremy’s health problems had surfaced. I had been concerned that when a new baby arrived my little man would be jealous, that he was no longer the center of attention. I sat my unusually intelligent young man into my ever shrinking lap and told him that this new little person would need a lot of help getting started on being as wonderful and capable as he was. I told him that it would be up to all of us to teach this person to walk and to talk. He had nodded thoughtfully and really didn’t seem to be too concerned.

Thinking on that lead to the memory of a discussion regarding Jeremy’s sister with
Ben, my second husband.

“Ben, I’m wondering if our little girl might be hard of hearing or have some kind of speech impediment,” I had said. Ben was agreeing that she was a wonderful child, but might be a little slow. He reminded me how long it had taken her to walk.. Neither of us had heard her say more than one word at time.

Jeremy had been standing in the hallway, apparently about to ask for something.

“Rachel talks,” he said.

“We’ve never heard her say more than Mama, Dada or bye bye, Jere.”

“Rachel come here.” Jeremy commanded. His sister appeared quickly by his side from the bedroom where they had been previously playing, She was all smiles her little brown eyes shining out from under her soft brown bangs.

“Say hello Mommie and Daddy," Jeremy commanded.

“Hello Mommie and Daddy," she parroted after him smiling.

She had been talking to him the entire time but not to us.

“Ask for a cookie,” said Jeremy.

“Could I have a cookie?”

“You forgot to say ‘please’ and it’s May I,” Jeremy instructed.

“May I have a cookie please?” Rachel said as instructed.

Needless to say, they both got their cookies and there were fond recollections, pictures frozen in time of what a wonderful day that had been.

Suddenly in my head the movie changed to Jeremy at three years old rocking backwards in our old green upholstered rocking chair. He was small for his age and it was the only way that he could make it rock. As he rocked he counted the buttons on the back of the chair. There were two rows of buttons. One of 4 buttons and the other row had three.

“One, two, three, four,” he counted. He looked puzzled for a moment. I had sat myself
down to crochet on the couch as long as my favorite chair was occupied.

He started counting again. “One, two, three.” He scratched the top of his little blonde head. “Hmmm…” He counted both rows and turned to me. “Mom, did you know that 4 plus 3 equals 7?”

My eyes went wide. “Um, yes son, I knew that.” Jeremy always amazed me with how young he was and how aware he could be.

Then his eyes went wide with the realization. “Wait!” He turned back to his buttons.

“Check this out!” He put his arm over the lower row of three buttons, “7 minus 3 is 4!”
and then he seemed even more excited as he further discovered. “And,” he said as he covered the upper row of 4 buttons, “7 minus 4 would be 3!”

“Boy,” I said getting back up, “You just earned a candy bar.”

My mind flashed to discovering the kidney problems and I winced as I heard in my head
the doctor pronouncing the verdict. “It’s a bi-lateral hydro-nephrosis of the kidneys.”
I forced my mind elsewhere. These were the problems that had caused us the most pain.
It was one more card stacked against Jeremy. Every trip to the doctor’s office, every hospital trip seemed to find one more flaw in Jeremy’s systems. My mind flashed on nothing but voices for a bit, unbidden, unwanted, but all the things different doctors had said over Jeremy’s short 19 and a half year life span.

“We will be lucky if he makes it to double numbers.”

“Mrs. Hatheway, your son is dying.”

“Well Mrs. Hatheway, it appears to be a syndrome caused by your first husband’s drug abuse. Here’s the articles I could find on it.” The articles had been on LSD and Mescaline Syndrome all of them containing findings from autopsies of the deceased teen and pre-teen victims.

“Doctor, we can’t find the complete medical records on this patient.”

“Have you asked he mother? She is a walking encyclopedia on her son’s condition.”

“If you ever go into nursing young lady, I want you on my staff.”

A momentary picture of me using the ambulatory bag as Jeremy, “went down” and pressing the button for the code blue team. There were frantic moments before the team arrived and I refused to leave the room until they did.

My mind finally settled on a mixed movie. It was of a happier, but not easier time. Ben and Dale sitting in the hospital room with Jeremy and I. Both the men Jeremy’s step-fathers, when a nurse strode in saying, “I have a call from a Duncan McEwan. He wanted to speak to Jeremy. He claims that he is Jeremy’s step-father.” We all laughed. Duncan was my third husband and so actually was another of Jeremy’s step fathers.

The poor nurse left shaking her head saying, “I am SO confused.”

As we were leaving a friend of ours asked if there were some way that he could be allowed to see Jeremy.

Dale said to tell the nurses that he was my brother. Randy didn’t look like me at all, nor did he look like Dale.

I said, “Tell them you are one of Jeremy’s step-fathers. At this point, they just might believe you.”

My mind drifted to the blind high school student doing his class play. I had been so proud.

Nothing hindered Jeremy. He played the undertaker in “Rest Assured.” His comedy style didn’t fail him. No one in the audience who didn’t know Jeremy caught on to the fact that the young actor was blind. Even though the actor was, the character was not. I marveled at the fact that in all those years of blindness, Jeremy's eyes had remained crystal blue until death clouded them over.

My mind drifted to being Jeremy’s aid at Serrano High School. The school had not been able to find Jeremy an aide, so I told them and Jeremy that I would be happy to do it. Those were happier days. My conscious mind told me that I would never regret those days.

Leaving the office that day I asked Jeremy if his mom hanging out with him all of the time was going to cramp his style. “You never got to meet my last mobility instructor, did you Mom?” He made a face something like he had gotten a hold of some rotten fruit or something. “Trust me. You can’t be THAT bad.”

I grinned, and we made a plan for how I should “get lost” if he was trying to hit on the ladies.

The mind pictures faded away as Dale drove us into The Primadona Hotel at Stateline Nevada for dinner. I smiled, “Well this was more than one of your ‘little rides,’” I said.

He replied slyly,“I never called it one of my little rides. I said ‘a ride.’”

I turned to Venus, “Remind me the next time your dad says ‘Let’s go for a ride,’ that you and I should pack an over night case.” Venus nodded and started talking about the arcade at 95 miles an hour before we ever entered the doors.

We ate well, we gambled, Venus got to do the arcade and then we settled down for the night in a hotel room, there at the casino.

It had been a good time really, but the long day, the loss, the thoughts and just plain
missing Jeremy all crowded in upon me. I started to cry myself to sleep. I had turned to face the wall and was weeping softly, drifting off to sleep, when it happened. I felt someone take my hand. I was sure it was Dale trying to comfort me when I opened my eyes, but there in front of me was Jeremy as solid and real as he had ever been in life, his big clear blue eyes staring into mine. He said, “Mom, I would have stayed, but my body was no damned good.”

The vision of him faded, but I could feel the squeeze of a solid hand on mine. I wasn’t afraid. I wept a bit harder and told Dale what was happening.

“Well,” said Dale, “I thought it was a fog over my eyes, but it is still there, and it is still bent over you.”

“I know,” I whispered, “He still has my hand.”

I laid there afraid to move. I didn’t want the moment to end. All I felt was the warm flood of love and concern. As it dissipated I said a thank you, first to Jeremy for coming and then to God for sending him, for allowing me to know that my boy was well and with Him at last.