13 EXIT

13 EXIT

When Sandy left one day Nita asked her attendant to help her read a few verses in the Bible.

The strangest thought came to Nita's mind one day as she read Isaiah 41:10:

"Fear thou not; for I am with thee; be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness."

And as she read further, she was stopped in her tracks by Isaiah 42:6:

"I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles."

If He had promised to strengthen her, to hold her hand, then why not trust Him fully? - leave the hospital and get an apartment?

It was absurd - she was a total vegetable, physically - and yet as she thought about it, Nita felt a deep assurance that this truly was the leading of the Lord.

Besides, she was tired of being everybody's chunk of meat: the doctors would stand outside her door looking at the records and exclaiming their surprise that she was still alive, as if she couldn't hear them, and she didn't need that kind of carelessness any more.

Still, it took her a while to muster up the confidence to tell anyone about the idea. She knew there would be opposition. Her fears were soon realized, and her mother was, by turns, frantic and angry. She had spent thousands of dollars on the finest medical care available in the country, and now Nita was going to jeopardize her very life by moving out. The cousins, uncles and other relatives thought it was ridiculous. Perhaps Nita was losing her mind? Perhaps she was becoming suicidal? Some of them advised simply refusing her. What could she do about it, after all? If no one moved her out, she had no way of leaving.

Only Colton understood.

"I feel God would have me leave the hospital," Nita said to him through silent lips.

"I'll talk to the doctors," he said compassionately.

"Nita feels God is telling her to leave the hospital," Colton told them.

"Well, tell her God wants her to stay here," one of them suggested snidely.

"I can't tell her that," Colton replied. "But if staying is the best thing for her to do, I can tell her that."

"Tell her that, then. It's foolish for her to even think about getting more than a few yards away from the intensive care unit. She's in there every other day as it is."

Colton gently relayed the message. But Nita was prepared. She had not received an answer from God as to the question of her destiny, but she knew a move like this would still give Him all the options, and that was argument enough for her: "If God's plan calls for me to die, I can die in my own place just as well," she explained calmly to him. "There is nothing much to lose. Think of this as my last request. Let me go to spend time alone with the Lord, according to my convictions. And, if it is my destiny to live a long life as a cripple, I can do that elsewhere too."

Colton smiled as she approached the third option – his favourite: "And God can certainly heal me anywhere He wants."

She attached two conditions to the request: she wanted an apartment of her own, and she wanted no visitors other than her mother, Colton and Suzanne, and Sandy.

She couldn't think of going home to her own house; it would drain the life right out of her mother. She could move into a single flat with her private attendant and learn to cope.

And she had tired of the gawking. She had been examined thoroughly and constantly by doctors and nurses for about a year, and that was enough. Besides, she had become something of a Christian tourist attraction as people heard about her condition. Every few days another group passing through Colombo would stop by to see her, ostensibly to cheer her up and pray for her - and they inevitably stared. She had seen herself now, too, and she did not care to have even her relatives seeing any more of what she had become.

Mrs. Edwards stalled. She offered to send Nita to the United States for treatment. But word came back that there was no cure available there either; they could only keep her alive for four-hundred-and-fifty dollars a day, plus medication.

Colton assumed the yoke of the argument on Nita's behalf. He knew she could never argue her case successfully without a voice, virtually without a physical body. He negotiated gently, firmly, and wisely with the family. Tension filled the room, then evaporated, then returned, as the struggle stretched into days and weeks, to Christmas. But Nita's case was won.

Christmas was a minor tragedy in itself. Family and friends brought expensive gifts which Nita could not open. There was a lot of Christmas confectionery and cake, and pudding brought from England, which she could not taste. Her room was all decorated with festive Christmas trimmings which she could barely see, and several groups came by from churches to sing carols to her, but she was self-conscious and uncomfortable.

Nita's last night in the hospital, December 30, was like her funeral in advance. All the relatives and friends turned out to cry over her body. They knew they would never see her alive again. She was going into hiding to die.

There were other tensions too. Some of them thought Mrs. Edwards must have decided that Nita would not have any visitors. Others blamed Colton and Suzanne. There would be hard feelings in the family for some time to come. Loved ones and friends felt shunned and hurt. They could not understand that it was a spiritual thing, where God wanted Nita to rely totally on Him.

Nita thought of her old English literature studies at the university. She could still quote a snatch of Shakespeare:

"There is a tide in the affairs of men

When taken at full lead on

But if omitted all of life

Is left in the shallows."

The months she had wasted when she could have been studying now returned to haunt her. She had expected to leave the hospital under much different circumstances, returning to school for more fun and frolic. Instead, she had no hope of ever again leading a normal academic life, the kind of life she had taken so for granted.

Angry at herself, she resolved to find a way to achieve the education she had begun years ago. She would strap herself in a motorized wheelchair and learn to drive a special car -whatever it took - to make good those squandered opportunities.

As her anger subsided, though, she knew her tide had already gone out the final time. She had not taken it at full.

At the farewell gathering, the nurses and doctors were as red-eyed as the relatives. They had been even closer to Nita in the past months than her family had been. Nita knew what their grim faces were saying.

She was lifted onto a stretcher and lugged down the hallway. As she was carried out of the back door of the building, she thought how different it had been the day she first crossed that same threshold. It was backwards, this story of hers: she had walked in, now she was being carried out.

A Red Cross ambulance was waiting to bear her body to its new resting place. Nita could make out its design, and see that it was a hearse, but without the nice door. As they slid her in, she couldn't help but think, "This is how it will be when I'm dead." It was an emotional little trip. Her mother and her attendant rode with her. She could tell that her mother was thinking of the last time she had ridden in an ambulance, with her father.

Nita could barely see the tops of the trees as the ambulance sped through Colombo's streets, and she knew this could be the last time she would see the lovely little island. Her vision had failed her, but some days were better than others. She was grateful that at least this was one of her better days.

Suzanne had gone ahead. The ambulance pulled into a pleasant little driveway in a lovely yard, and everyone got out to make arrangements for Nita to be brought in. She was alone in the back of the ambulance waiting like an excess piece of luggage forgotten in the trunk of the family car. The neighbourhood kids quickly gathered around to look through the windows. They had heard that their new neighbour was a paralysed girl. This crooked thing must be her.