Letters Home, 5
Written by Tim Roesch
Leahy Medical Center, Nurse Training Program, April 1635
My dearest aunt,
My only excuse for not writing recently is that I have been unable to properly put upon paper what I have seen and done quite recently. In the past I have had more to write about than time to write and paper to write upon. Now, an event has occurred that has made all other things pale in importance. It has driven all else from my thoughts.
There is a term that I had learned but never properly understood. I never brought it to your attention because it seemed so unimportant. Healing and dying go hand in hand. That term is "mortality rate." I thought it trivial. Of course, when one heals one is intimate with death. Now, it is a term that should put to rest all the arguing over the miracles that God has placed into our hands.
There are so many things that one reads or learns or looks straight into the eye and yet does not understand, does not see. I am almost forced to remember a verse from the Holy Book . . . Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember?
I must make a decision, dear aunt. Of all at home that I must hurt, I feel that I will hurt you most of all because you loved my mother most of all. I was the cause of your pain. You do not say it, but I have always known and now I must make that pain worse.
Having eyes, see ye not?
I have seen great things during my time here in Grantville in the LeahyMedicalCenter, but these are things that simply can not exist, now, without destroying utterly many of the lies we have clung to. You have clung to some of these lies as well, my aunt. I, as well.
I have seen blind children see through the simple use of what many would call a miracle—vitamin A. I have seen the lame walk; despite broken bones that would have killed strong men in the time before Grantville. I have seen the sorely injured rise up as if from death's grip itself. I have seen stopped hearts started again.
And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with him, seeking of him a sign from heaven, tempting him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? Verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation.
Is Grantville the sign written of here, in the Holy Book?
I am a simple girl and I feel humble when I wash my hands and realize that I might save a life thereby.
I peer into a microscope and see worlds and draw back, amazed. Are these small organisms a sign? I wash my hands and forget the countless, the myriad, who have died but for so simple an act. Is this the sign? Is forgiveness the sign?
I run from one miracle to another until I see miracles no more but merely facts and figures and mortality rates. I have eyes, dear aunt, but do I see?
Is it possible that you thought that I would not know what effect I have had on your life? Have we both pretended and looked away and given no chance for forgiveness?
All of this so I can tell you this story. You will know of what I am speaking instantly, I am sure.
Almost a month ago an event happened that altered my life.
A patient came into the ER, the room of emergencies, while I was on duty. I have rarely seen the doctors and nurses so overset with concern and malice for the forces they continuously move against. There was an intent seriousness and I was struck dumb with amazement because I knew there was no hope; could not be any hope.
Because you and I have been where this patient was, aunt.
The woman was pregnant, hugely so, and from her birth canal hung a cord; the umbilical cord. They call it a prolapsed cord and the doctors all, to a one, saw this merely as a serious problem when you and I have seen it differently.
I knew, as you would know, right then, that the woman was dead and the babe she carried might be dead. I knew this. I was a babe at the other end of such a prolapsed cord, aunt, and you were the doctor faced with this horror.
And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have no bread.
I understand, now, why Moses threw down those first, stone tablets. I understand his anger at those who did not believe, who turned away from God.
As a child I was led to the woman's face. Someone took my hand and led me there. I had no will left. They had no time for my silly emotions, my fear.
I have come to recognize the difference between down-timers and up-timers. Down-timers come into a place like this, often, without hope while up-timers expect miracles.
I held the mask over the woman's face. The mask delivered the life giving oxygen. I watched and listened as tragedy and horrors were undone, unraveled, unstitched.
Strong hands of nurses held her down. Strong bodies of emergency staff jostled me while I waited for the woman to stop breathing, to die. I stood as a statue.
And she did not die. They cut her and she did not die.
First one then another blue, bloody squalling babe was placed at her breasts and she did not die. Then the doctor said this:
"Lydia, that's the second time I've had to do that! Don't make it a third!" the doctor shouted over the clamor and noise of what he had done.
The second time, aunt! This woman has delivered by being cut open once before. I have seen the scar. She is angry that they do not have the pain medication they had in this place they call up-time. She expected to survive this thing and her babes with her!
During the procedure, while they placed an IV, she shouted at the doctor!
"Shut up, asshole, and give me some morphine!"
And the doctor replied while sewing her up, "We don't got any! Deal with it! Jesus Christ; first the baby then the cord. Get it right! Baby, then cord!"
And then came the blood transfusion. Oh God, the transfusion! I had forgotten that miracle. Do you understand, aunt?
And when Jesus knew it, he saith unto them, Why reason ye, because ye have no bread? Perceive ye not yet, neither understand? Have ye your heart yet hardened?
Yes, aunt, my heart was hardened and now it is softened. I do not remember what happened next. From the time they put her into the ICU, the place of more intense care, to where they found me, I do not remember what I said or did.
They found me in the small chapel. There is only one. All faiths share it, aunt. All faiths!
A Jewish family was there talking to one of their holy men and I felt suddenly trapped. I stared at them and them at me.
"I am sorry," I cried out.
They found me, the chief of student nurses and the doctor, collapsed in a corner and I told them the tale of my birth and my mother's death and your pain. And I am sorry, aunt. I told them everything, every secret we never told one another.
I am sorry.
They call it O-B-G-Y-N. Obstetrics; birthing. I would never have dared tell you about this until now. I would never have dared remind you and I did not want to remind myself.
God has shown me where I shall go and where I shall walk. I will set aside my foolish interest in microbiology. I had meant to hide there like bacteria hiding on a hand.
I shut up my mouth as it mocks this theory of evolution and the man who created it. I will treat hand washing as a priest treats baptism and I will wash hate and superstition from my heart. I will never again say "bless you" when someone sneezes, because I know it is not a demon that causes disease but something that cannot hear such a blessing and is not affected by it. I know it is up to me, not God, to prevent disease.
I have found a way to deliver me of my false shame and you of your false guilt.
The twins are fine and healthy. They are not girls, as you and my mother were, but tiny boys.
I know, aunt, that my mother was your twin. I have known since I was nine years old. I was told never to tell you that I knew.
I am sorry.
Your loving niece,
Adalheid
p.s. And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show to you today.
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