A Field of Onions – Part 4

“Life is like a field of onions; one cries while peeling it.” ~ Proverb

Cancer. For a split-second Molly was not sure if she had heard correctly? I have cancer? From the look on Dr. Conner’s face and the fact Jena and her mom were crying confirmed it. All the air went out of the room.

She heard someone whisper, “Get out. Get out, all of you.” She wasn’t sure who said it because there was a roar inside her head. No one seemed to hear it, so the voice grew louder. “GET OUT! Get out! Get out, now!”
It wasn’t until her mom tried to approach her that she realized she was the one saying the words. Yelling in fact. It was like someone else had taken over her thoughts and body.

“Please, everyone, just get out!” Tears were now flowing down her face, and she sat huddled in the hospital chair with her face buried in her hands. She felt her mom’s touch but even that did not matter.
She finally heard Dr. Conner say, “Come on, Katharine, Jena, let’s give Molly some space.”

Just like that she was alone in the room. How could this be happening to me, she thought. She began to rock back and forth. All sorts of things started running through her mind. The things she’d never get to experience. Her first kiss from a boy that loved her. Walking down the aisle on her wedding day. Having a home and family. Traveling outside of Mason to see what else was in the world besides what she already knew.

As a family they had always gone to church. Katharine was a woman of faith and prayed daily. She had taught all her children the Bible and how Jesus had died for our sins. What a joke! Molly thought.

What kind of God allowed something horrific as cancer? Wasn’t the death of Jesus supposed to take care of all that? Wasn’t one death enough? Instead, He had taken her brother Tim and now he was going to take her too.
A rage began to rise in her throat. Before she could stop herself, she got up and reached for the plastic pitcher of water next to her bed. She threw it across the room, and watched it splash over the wall. The flimsy plastic cracked when it hit the floor.

Her door opened and there stood Mildred, the nurse’s aide on call during the day. She was a black woman who made Molly laugh when she came in to check on her.

“Lord, chile, whatchu done?” Mildred asked with her hands on her hips.

All the energy went out of Molly, and she collapsed on Mildred sobbing. She felt her big strong arms wrap around her and cradle her like a child.

“Now, now, baby girl…you jus let it all out. God knows…. He know we needs us a good cry sometimes.”

Molly pulled away. “I hate God! What doesn’t He love me?” The sobs started again. Mildred directed her to the edge of her bed and they both sat down.

“Now then…what makes you think God don’t love you?” Mildred asked.

“Because. I have CANCER!” She could not seem to stop crying and snot was beginning to run down her chin. Mildred handed her a tissue. While Molly blew her nose, Mildred began to talk very softly to her.

“I know it hard to believe right now, but I promise you, He love you. He love all us. It is when we are hurting that He the closest to us. You remember that. You still young but one day, you gonna still be here to understand. I jus’ knows it.” Her big black face was the prettiest thing Molly thought she had ever seen.

“You promise?”

“Yes, I do. Now! I’s got to get busy cleaning up dis mess someone made over here. Gon take a mop to get up dat water. You jus’ lie back here, and I’ll get de mop. Once I’s finished, what if I sneak down to the nurses’ kitchen and bring you a strawberry Jell-O?”

For the first time all morning, Molly smiled through her tears and nodded. By the time Mildred brought her the Jell-O she was sleeping. She never knew she stood by her bed and prayed or saw her wipe tears from her face.

******************

The first face she recognized upon opening her eyes was her mom’s, and the first thought was, “I’m still alive.” She tried to answer her mom’s question, but her mouth did not want to work. Things go black again.

The next time she awoke, Jena was there too. Both Katharine and Jena were staring at her. “Why are you guys staring at me?” she asked groggily.

Looking at one another, they both giggled. “Well, you HAVE been asleep for hours and we were wondering if you needed a good tickle to wake you up.” Jena offered.

She tried to move but realized the excruciating pain in her abdomen and moaned. The nurse appeared to check her blood pressure and asked if she’d like more pain meds.

A doctor at Vanderbilt Hospital in Tennessee had been experimenting with lymphatic cancer. He discovered that if the spleen was removed in the initial stages of development, it served as a block. Meaning it prevented the cancer from spreading to other organs.

Dr. Conner had shared this information with Katharine, Jena, and Molly. He felt that Molly may be a viable candidate following some tests. More tears and more raging. Molly knew this meant more needles and surgery. No one had to tell her what it meant if she was not a candidate. Depression began to take over.

After a grueling battery of tests – most involving needles and scans, she had the green light for a splenectomy. Molly didn’t even know what or where the spleen was. She kept asking for Death to go ahead and claim her and spare her the pain and fear of all these procedures. Death ignored her.

She was surprised to find herself still among the living awakening from the surgery – just barely. It felt like she had been hit by a big yellow school bus, and it backed over just to make sure.

Two things immediately came to mind. She was thirsty and needed to pee. She said as much to the nurse who was there to take her blood pressure – again. The nurse responded by offering ice chips and telling her that a bedpan was available.

A bedpan? Uh, no. I am not going to use a dang bedpan, Molly thought to herself. After the nurse left, she called out for Jena.

“Jena? Can you help me?”

Jena appears by her bed, “Whatcha need?”

“I need to pee, and I am not using no damn bedpan. Help me up!”

Molly throws back the flimsy hospital blanket and tries to sit up. The pain was so intense, she caught her breath.

“Molly, don’t be ridiculous! You cannot get up yet. You need to suck it up and use the bedpan.” Jena exclaimed.

“If you do not help me up, I’ll do it myself. I SAID, I’m not using the bedpan, got it?” Molly had somehow managed to pull herself up by the railings. It was the worst pain she had ever felt in her life, but by George, she was going to the commode!

“What the hell? Will you wait a minute! We need to make sure we have your IV lines and poles freed up. Why you take this moment to be stubborn is beyond me!” Jena snapped.

“Jena? I’m going to the damn bathroom! Just shut your face!”

“You better be glad Mom went down to the cafeteria. She’d have your hide for all this cursing you’re doing.”

Katharine hated “ugly talk” and would be disappointed, but honestly, Molly didn’t care. Hard times call for a good round of curse words.
“You curse all the time and live to curse again, so shut the hell up and help me!”

Every step cut like a knife. She counted each one until she eased herself onto the commode. Fifteen. Fifteen steps from the bedpan. Take that, damn bedpan!

With Jena’s continued help, she was easing back to the bed when Dr. Conner and Katharine walked into the room.

“MOLLY! Oh, my Lord! What are you doing?” Katharine immediately rushed forward to help Jena ease her back into bed.

“She wouldn’t have it any other way! Refused to use the bedpan and made a big fuss about using the commode.” Jena explained, making sure it was not her idea.

Dr. Conner stepped up to the other side of Molly’s bed and smiled.

“Good girl! The more you move and walk, the faster you will heal. Be sure to breathe deeply when they bring in breathing treatments. If you keep this up, you can go home in a few days.”

Molly threw a smug look over at Jena and her mom as if to say – “See?”

At the mention of home, Molly perked up. She wanted to get home to check on the little green onions. She wondered if anyone had even bothered since she had been in the hospital.

“Do you really mean it, Dr. Conner? I may get to go home soon?” Molly’s eyes were so hopeful.

“Yes, Ma’am. Let’s give it a few more days to make sure your incision is healing nicely, but I do not see any reason you cannot go home by the weekend. Think you can manage awhile longer? I know you will miss the pizza.” He smiled again when he said this.

Molly only nodded and smiled back. Home! She couldn’t wait. They had already told her she would have to have chemotherapy. She knew it meant more needles and a host of other unpleasant things she could not think about right now. One day at a time.

*****************

The sun was shining, and the sky was so blue. Molly could never remember the sky looking as blue as it was right now. And the green! Everything was lush and green.

She stood at the end of the long row of green onions. The tops were well up and ready to pull. You could easily get three or four harvests from them if you kept them watered and the bulb deep in the soil. Her dad would be so excited to see them growing.

There had not been much time to think about her dad. She wondered how he would have handled things if he was alive. He was devastated when Tim had died. Even though she missed him so much, she was glad he was not here to witness her death too.

She sank down into the soil and a sudden wave of tears overtook her. The rage that had been rattling around in her spirit came to the surface with it. Picking up a clod of dirt next to her, she threw it as hard as she could.
“Why, God? WHY? I hate you! You’re nothing but a big ole bully sitting up there in the sky watching us crawl and scratch to survive. What kind of God are you? I thought you were supposed to be a LOVING God.” She beat the earth with her fists.

Glancing up through her tears, there was her beautiful field of onions. Without thinking, she started pulling up one right after the other, all the while cursing and crying and yelling at God. Her arms became so full of the pungent little onions, they lay where they landed. She didn’t stop until she was at the end of the row.

Appearing as if out of thin air, Katharine’s arms wrapped around her from behind. “Molly….Molly…. oh, my sweet Molly.” She said over and over.

Spent, Molly sank to her knees still holding an armful of onions. Katharine held her tight until she quieted. They were both covered in dirt from the onions.

For a minute they both just sat there not saying a word. Finally, Molly dared look at her mother. It broke her heart to see the pain etched in her mother’s face.

“Mom? I am so angry at God. I hate him. I know that is wrong, but I do. Aren’t you mad at him, too?” Tears threatened all over again, but Molly managed to hold them at bay.

Katharine took Molly’s dirt covered hands in hers. She pushed tendrils of hair away from Molly’s face where they had plastered itself from all her tears.

“Oh course, I’ve been angry at God. How could I not be? I was so angry at him for taking Tim. He was only eighteen and had so much life ahead of him. Now you, with the exact same cancer. I have spent many a night telling the good Lord how angry I am.”

“You have? You never act like it. You always seem so positive and certain that God loves us, and everything will be okay.”

Katharine sighed. “Call that my maternal nature. I do that because I feel like someone needs to remind everyone that things could be worse, or that all this will pass in time. It’s my way of…well coping. I am sorry if you have felt that I was not upset. I want to be strong for you. If I gave in to my own pain, I may not hold it together. Right now, you need me to be strong. Do you understand?” Katharine asked.

Molly nodded. “But what about God?”

“Honey, there is a lot we do not understand about God. What I do know is that God is not the author of fear or pain. We live in a physical world that is flawed. God did not give you or Tim cancer. Believe that. Just know that through the cancer God is with you.”

“If he is with us, then why did Tim have to die?” Molly could not wrap her head around it.

“Do you not think God was not with Tim even in death? That he is not with Tim right now? God is with us, Molly here and on the other side. God is love. Love never leaves us. You will understand this more and more as you get older.”

“But I won’t be here to get older! Don’t you get it? I’m dying!” Molly jumped up and threw the bunch of onions she had been holding to the ground.

Rising next to her, Katharine grabbed her hands. “Molly! No one said you are dying! Dr. Conner feels you have a ninety-five percent chance of full recovery. Do you hear me? Ninety-five percent! It is up to you to fight for that wonderful percentage. Ninety-five percent is a gift! Tim did not have that chance OR chemotherapy, but you do! Attitude is half the battle. You’ve got to stop feeling sorry for yourself and fight! Remember that day in the hospital when you refused to use the bedpan nine hours after surgery? THAT’S the fighter I’m talking about. The choice is yours.”

Katharine let go her hands and started gathering all the piles of green onions. Molly stood there watching as her arms began to get full. She walked over to the edge of the garden and grabbed the wheelbarrow. It was a bit rusted, but it had belonged to her grandpa. John had never been able to part with it.

Pulling up next to her, Katharine turned and saw Molly standing there. She smiled and dropped the little green onions into the base of the wheelbarrow. Quietly, the two continued gathering the remaining piles of onions. Katharine finally broke their silence.

“Molly, what in the world are we going to do with all of these green onions?” Katharine bent to turn on the water faucet and reached for the garden hose.

There were a lot of onions. As they began to soak the onions and clean the dirt from the ends, a bit of water splashed out onto Katharine’s feet. Before Molly knew what happened, Katharine splashed hard, and water went all over Molly soaking her good.

The water was so cold, she gasped. “Hey!” She said, but then Katharine started laughing and then both were laughing. Molly splashed back. By the time the onions were clean, they were both drenched but it felt good to be silly and laugh.

Later in the kitchen, Jena came in and saw all the green onions. Molly had taken a bunch and made a bouquet for the dining table in a Mason jar. Katharine was busy chopping up some of the whites for supper.

“It looks like an onion factory in here! What’s for supper?” Jena asked flopping on a bar stool.

Molly and Katharine looked at one another and smiled. “French onion soup and onion tartlet with cheese.” Molly replied.

“NO meat? Just onion dishes?” Jena asked while snacking on a grape from the fruit bowl.

“Yep! Katharine and Molly said at the same time. Both started giggling.

“You guys are weird!” Jena replied grabbing another handful of grapes.

Molly stuck her tongue out at Jena. That was met by a roll of the eyes.

After supper, Molly was resting on her bed. She thought about what her mom had said about fighting and having a good attitude. Life was like those green onions. Full of layers, some sweet and some not. They nestled safely only to be ripped from the earth, yet they grew back, green, and tall again.

Maybe she was right about the God thing too. She closed her eyes and asked God to be with her. Just for good measure, she apologized for being angry. And the cursing.

Molly eased off her bed and walked down the hall to Katharine’s room. She was in bed reading, as she did every night before bed. She softly knocked on the door.

Hearing her mother reply “come in” she eased the door open and popped her head inside.

Katharine stopped reading and smiled that sweet smile that lit a room up. “Yes, honey?”

“Mom, I’ve been thinking about what you said. You know about being a fighter and God being with us.”

“And?”

“And I’ve decided to be strong and fight. I also asked God if he would think about coming along with me. Think he heard me?”

“Sweetheart, I know he did.”