Bill Hall - Cast into the Fire

 

 

We were in our third year of frequent visits to a pediatric cancer center. We were dealing with the reality that we were going to outlive one of our children. As time grew short, we lay in bed with her, my wife one side, me on the other, and we held her between us until she slipped away. She was just short of her third birthday. 

 

When you die in a hospital, they don't just wheel you out. They have a gurney, and it has a false bottom in it and they hide the body in there. I couldn't do that. We had never hid her from the world and we weren't going to start now. I told them, I'll carry her through the hospital to the hearse. They said, “We don't do that sort of thing here.” And I said, I don't give a damn what you do. You're doing it today.

 

They wrapped her in a blanket. And I picked her up. My wife clung to my arm tighter than she ever had before or since. We leaned on each other. And together, we carried our daughter to the hospital, kissed her goodbye for the last time, and they put her in a hearse. Then we leaned on each other and walked back through the hospital. To this day, I don't know who was holding up who. 

 

When a couple goes through something like this, no one remains unchanged. One of two things happen. It destroys them or it makes them indestructible. Very early on in our years together, we were cast into the fire, but we did not burn. Though we didn't know it at the time, we were made of stronger stuff. The fire tempered us and eventually forged us into one. 

 

I've learned many things from my wife through the years. I will never be as good a person, but by her example, I've learned to be a better person. But there was one lesson we learned together, a terrible day so long ago, when we're beaten, when we're broken, when we can no longer stand on our own. If we lean on each other, neither one of us will fall.