Emma's Journal A Novella

Chapter One When it's time for me to go, I just want to know that my life made a difference. Lord, help me take advantage of every opportunity to touch others in ways that demonstrate your love.from Emma's journal, found on January 1st of every year Emma Estes fought her way out of her stroke's paralysis to verbalize her final words. Each word held profound possibility for those present, as well as for others she hadn't even met. Her eyelids fluttered, and she labored to form the syllables on her lips. Unfortunately, not a soul was listening. Just moments before her family arrived, nurses had brought her from the emergency room and were getting her settled in the intensive care unit. Dr. Lloyd Foster just happened to be at the hospital making rounds when she was admitted. He had cared for Emma for the last half of her seventy-seven years. He had her chart in hand, though there was nothing in it he didn't already know. "Look," he told his senior nurse. "She's so tiny, you barely notice her under the blanket." The nurse nodded and stroked Emma's forehead. Tubes and tape obscured the patient's worn face. "That white hair feathered around her head looks like a halo." "I've never met a soul who fit one better," Dr. Foster claimed. "Most of us get more cranky with every birthday. Emma just got sweeter by the day." The old woman's delicate hands were visible above the blankets. Attached to IV bags on stands, both were already bruising from the staff's many attempts to find her fragile, faint veins. Monitors and other equipment recorded every nuance of her bodily functions and relayed them to the ICU nurses at their station just a few feet away. "I hope her family gets here soon," said the nurse. "I don't feel good about this." "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven..." "What?" "You're right. I think it's her time," said Dr. Foster. As the gold Audi A6 left Overland Park and hit Interstate 35 north, it briefly hit seventy miles per hour. Emma's son was driving, his wife assisting. "Stuart, you need to watch your speed, dear. You can't afford to get another ticket." Stuart Estes, known as Stu to everyone else, backed off the gas, bringing the car down to sixty-four. I haven't had a ticket in eighteen years, he replied, but the words stayed in his head. He glanced over at his wife, Marilyn, a Rubenesque woman, tall of stature and full of figure. Her substantial dimensions were supported by a surprisingly dainty pair of feet clad in fine Italian pumps. As she pecked the buttons on her cell phone with a professionally manicured nail, her gold-and-diamond-covered fingers and wrists flickered in the sunlight. Even though it was the middle of an abnormally hot summer, Marilyn's designer suit betrayed not a bead of sweat on her. As Marilyn waited for the call to go through, she pointed her left hand, which was holding a jumbo-size convenience-store mug of Diet Coke, at the dashboard and said, "Stuart, dear. Your thermostat says seventy-two. You know I like it on seventy. Take care of it, will you?" Stu again answered only in his head, then brought the car's temperature down two degrees as her call connected. "Tina? Hello, dear. Please connect me with Reverend Lamb. And, dear? This is an emergency." Being able to add that last line brought her immense pleasure. SRowell, Edward K. is the author of 'Emma's Journal A Novella', published 2003 under ISBN 9781578567249 and ISBN 1578567246.