But the disease weakened the rest of her body as well, preying on her muscles, making even simple things more difficult. In the first week of February she lost six pounds, and soon walking became difficult for her, unless it was only for a short distance. That was, of course, if she could put up with the pain, which in time she couldn’t. She went back to the pills again, accepting the dizziness in place of pain.
Still we read the Bible.
Whenever I visited Jamie, I would find her on the couch with the Bible already opened, and I knew that eventually her father would have to carry her there if we wanted to continue. Though she never said anything to me about it, we both knew exactly what it meant.
I was running out of time, and my heart was still telling me that there was something more I could do.
On February 14, Valentine’s Day, Jamie picked out a passage from Corinthians that meant a lot to her. She told me that if she’d ever had the chance, it was the passage she’d wanted read at her wedding. This is what it said:
Love is always patient and kind. It is never jealous. Love is never boastful or conceited. It is never rude or selfish. It does not take offense and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins, but delights in the truth. It is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.
Jamie was the truest essence of that very description.
Three days later, when the temperature slightly warmed, I showed her something wonderful, something I doubted she’d ever seen before, something I knew she would want to see.
Eastern North Carolina is a beautiful and special part of the country, blessed with temperate weather and, for the most part, wonderful geography. Nowhere is this more evident than Bogue Banks, an island right off the coast, near the place we grew up. Twenty-four miles long and nearly a mile wide, this island is a fluke of nature, running from east to west, hugging the coastline a half mile offshore. Those who live there can witness spectacular sunrises and sunsets every day of the year, both taking place over the expanse of the mighty Atlantic Ocean.
Jamie was bundled up heavily, standing beside me on the edge of the Iron Steamer Pier as this perfect southern evening descended. I pointed off into the distance and told her to wait. I could see our breaths, two of hers to every one of mine. I had to support Jamie as we stood there—she seemed lighter than the leaves of a tree that had fallen in autumn—but I knew that it would be worth it.
In time the glowing, cratered moon began its seeming rise from the sea, casting a prism of light across the slowly darkening water, splitting itself into a thousand different parts, each more beautiful than the last. At exactly the same moment, the sun was meeting the horizon in the opposite direction, turning the sky red and orange and yellow, as if heaven above had suddenly opened its gates and let all its beauty escape its holy confines. The ocean turned golden silver as the shifting colors reflected off it, waters rippling and sparkling with the changing light, the vision glorious, almost like the beginning of time. The sun continued to lower itself, casting its glow as far as the eye could see, before finally, slowly, vanishing beneath the waves. The moon continued its slow drift upward, shimmering as it turned a thousand different shades of yellow, each paler than the last, before finally becoming the color of the stars.
Jamie watched all this in silence, my arm tight around her, her breathing shallow and weak. As the sky was finally turning to black and the first twinkling lights began to appear in the distant southern sky, I took her in my arms. I gently kissed both her cheeks and then, finally, her lips.
“That,” I said, “is exactly how I feel about you.”
A week later Jamie’s trips to the hospital became more regular, although she insisted that she didn’t want to stay there overnight. “I want to die at home,” was all she said. Since the doctors couldn’t do anything for her, they had no choice but to accept her wishes.
At least for the time being.
“I’ve been thinking about the past few months,” I said to her.
We were sitting in the living room, holding hands as we read the Bible. Her face was growing thinner, her hair beginning to lose its luster. Yet her eyes, those soft blue eyes, were as lovely as ever.
I don’t think I’d ever seen someone as beautiful.
“I’ve been thinking about them, too,” she said.
“You knew, from the first day in Miss Garber’s class that I was going to do the play, didn’t you. When you looked at me and smiled?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“And when I asked you to the homecoming dance, you made me promise that I wouldn’t fall in love, but you knew that I was going to, didn’t you?”
She had a mischievous gleam in her eye. “Yes.”
“How did you know?”
She shrugged without answering, and we sat together for a few moments, watching the rain as it blew against the windows.
“When I told you that I prayed for you,” she finally said to me, “what did you think I was talking about?”
The progression of her disease continued, speeding up as March approached. She was taking more medicine for pain, and she felt too sick to her stomach to keep down much food. She was growing weak, and it looked like she’d have to go to the hospital to stay, despite her wishes.
It was my mother and father who changed all that.
My father had driven home from Washington, hurriedly leaving although Congress was still in session. Apparently my mother had called him and told him that if he didn’t come home immediately, he might as well stay in Washington forever.
When my mother told him what was happening, my father said that Hegbert would never accept his help, that the wounds were too deep, that it was too late to do anything.
“This isn’t about your family, or even about Reverend Sullivan, or anything that happened in the past,” she said to him, refusing to accept his answer. “This is about our son, who happens to be in love with a little girl who needs our help. And you’re going to find a way to help her.”
I don’t know what my father said to Hegbert or what promises he had to make or how much the whole thing eventually cost. All I know is that Jamie was soon surrounded by expensive equipment, was supplied with all the medicine she needed, and was watched by two full-time nurses while a doctor peeked in on her several times a day.
Jamie would be able to stay at home.
That night I cried on my father’s shoulder for the first time in my life.