“Hamish, get in my car. I’ll take you to your son,” Hal insisted, taking the man by his elbow. “We can stop at the house and pick up your wife.”
“She is not well enough to stand what is happening to Jonas. Cancer.”
“Does she know what happened?” Hal asked.
Hamish nodded as he watched the helicopter grow smaller in the distance. “Jah, I told her about the accident before I hitched the buggy up to come get you.”
“Emma, would you like to stay with Mrs. Yost until we get back? I can drop you off at the house so you can comfort her. The time will pass slow for her until her husband comes home,” Hal said.
“Jah, I would be glad to do that,” the girl agreed.
The hospital parking lot was busy when they arrived. Hal found one opening near the end of the parking place. Once inside the building, the ER nurse, Lucy, greeted them. “Hi, Hal. Can I help you?”
“The binder accident victim that just came in is mine. What’s happening?” Hal asked.
“He’s been rushed to surgery. I’ll check, but it’s really too soon to know much. They are probably still prepping him,” Lucy said as she rushed away.
Hal lead Hamish to the waiting room. “We can sit here until we hear.”
“I cannot sit. I am too ferhoodled to be still.” He said to her, running the brim of his straw hat around and around in his hands.
“I know what you mean. Me, too. All right, we’ll walk together,” Hal said patting his arm. She paced back and forth across the room along side Hamish. They walked from the line of chairs to the television perched on a shelf attached to the wall and back.
The time passed slow. Maybe because Hal kept looking at the clock on the wall too much.
“It is taking a long time,” Hamish stated.
“Yes, but that is to be expected. Your son has a lot of injuries for the doctor to fix. Are you hungry? I’d be glad to find you something to eat,” Hal offered.
“I cannot eat,” he said sadly.
She wanted to comfort this man in some way. “How about we say a prayer for Jonas?”
“I would like that,” Hamish said, kneeling down. Hal joined him in a silent prayer that the surgery was going well.
They paced again, and Hal saw the doctor coming before Hamish did. She raised a questioning eyebrow and got a solemn nod of the head. She put her hand on Hamish’s arm to stop him. He went to the doctor. “Ich bin die, Hamish Yost. Jonas Yost is my son.”
“Mr. Yost, I’m Dr. Stan Christensen the ER doctor. I called in our surgeon, Max Rather. We did all we could for your son, but I’m not sure that will be enough. The injuries are extensive. Your son lost a lot of blood in the field. We have him in a recovery room now. All we can do is wait. I have to be honest with you. At this point, if he survives it will take a miracle I’m afraid. Would you like to sit with him?”
Hamish had tears in his eyes. “Jah.”
“I’ll go with you, Hamish. We can wait together,” Hal said. “Which room, Stan?”
“The end one,” the doctor said.
“Come. I can show you where it is, Hamish,” Hal said, taking his arm.
When they walked in the room, the sight was almost more than Hamish could bare. Most of the lacerations on Jonas face had been covered with bandages, but what skin did show was bruised and swollen. The young man laid very still. He was hooked up to an oxygen tube that hissed air from the wall into a spot under the bandage where his nose used to be. His vitals showed on a screen beside his bed each time the blood pressure cuff whined full of air. On an IV stand hung a bag of blood and another with a clear fluid coursing through the tubing to the needle in his arm.
Hamish gasped. He reached out and took his son’s limp hand. Hal went around the bed and took Jonas’s other hand.
“I feel so helpless, Nurse Hal,” Hamish cried out.
“Just know that Jonas isn’t feeling pain right now. He’s young which is in his favor, but to be honest Hamish, what we need is the miracle the doctor mentioned,” Hal said truthfully.
“I will pray for my son’s recovery,” Hamish said as he bent his head. In a few moments, he looked up at Hal and studied her face. “You look tired. You do not have to stay with us if you want to go home.”
“No, I want to be with you and Jonas. It’s a lonely vigil if you have to do it alone. Better that there is two of us.” Hal hunted up two chairs in the corner of the room. “Here we go. We’ll be here a long awhile. Let’s sit down.” Hamish sat and lean over the bed. He stroked the bandage on his son’s arm. Hal said, “I could use a cup of coffee. How about you?”
“That would be gute. While you are gone, I will say another prayer.” Hamish immediately bowed his head.
Hal went to the nurse’s break room and fixed the pot. Just before the coffee finished dripping, Lucy Stineford came in. “I thought I smelled coffee.”
“I needed something to do. I wish I had some food for Hamish Yost. He hasn’t eaten or drank anything for hours,” Hal said.
“I’ll scrounge up some sandwiches from the kitchen,” Lucy offered.
“That would be great.” Hal poured coffee in two Styrofoam cups and headed back to the recovery room. She glanced at Jonas and immediately noticed a change for the worse. Hal handed Hamish his coffee and set her cup down. “I’ll be right back.” She whirled out of the room and met Lucy coming with a plate of sandwiches. “Better check Jonas. He’s showing signs of apnea.”
The nurse handed Hal the plate and rushed into the room. She leaned over the bed, took the man’s pulse and checked his heart beats with her stethoscope. She looked up and nodded her head sideways. She said the words Hamish dreaded hearing. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Yost, your son’s vitals are very weak.” She looked at Hal. “Call me when you need me.”
Hal nodded and sat down. “The damage was just too great Hamish.”
“He will go to be with God soon,” Hamish said simply.
“Yes, he will. I was taught in nursing school that the hearing is the last thing to go. Say anything you want to Jonas right now, and he’ll hear you,” Hal told him.
Hamish said, “I love you, my son. Go and be a servant at God’s side.” He ducked his head and wiped tears away with a work roughened hand.
“What Jonas asked for in the field was prayer to give him strength. Can we say the Lord’s Prayer again for him while he can hear us?” Hal asked. She hoped saying the prayer would let Hamish feel like he had done all he could for his son.
Hamish began, “Unser vater der du bist im Himmlerr, Gehiligest werde dein name ju komm.” Hal joined in. When they said amen, Jonas took his last breath.
“Hamish, he’s gone. I’ll get the nurse,” Hal told him.
Lucy rushed in with Hal and tried for the patient’s vitals. She shook her head. “He’s gone, Mr. Yost.”
“My name is Hamish. His is –- was Jonas.”
“All right. Hamish, I have some release forms you need to sign, and I need information about where to send your son’s body,” Lucy said.
A couple mornings later, the Lapp family left home to attend Jonas Yost’s funeral. Noah did the driving. John went ahead the evening before to help dress Jonas and put him in the coffin. He stayed with the Yost family all night for the wake. Hal and the kids walked past the long line of enclosed carriages on the gravel road, parked until time to go in the possession to the cemetery. Each carriage had a large number chalked on it. The number the hostlers put on the Lapp buggy made them twenty-fifth in line.
Once in the house, they were lead into the room where Jonas’s coffin lay in state, held up in the air by two wooden trestles. An odor of new wood came from the coffin, wider at the shoulders than it was at the head and feet. The lid was closed. The bench wagon had been parked close by and the benches unloaded in the house for the funeral service.
Once the viewing slowed down, Elton Bontrager and Luke Yoder walked up by the coffin. She worried that the emotional stress might be too much for him, but he was a man with a sense of duty. He had been chosen bishop. Hal had the feeling only his own death would keep him from performing his duties.
After everyone sat down, the family took their seat on benches to face the coffin. Bishop Bontrager started the service. He talked about the creation of the world. He pointed out Adam was created from dust, and each person must return to dust just like Adam.
He opened his bible and read John 5:20, “For the Father loveth the Son and showth him all things that himself doth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.” He continued the verses until he ended with verse 30, “I can of my own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.”
Preacher Luke Yoder read Corinthians 15 from verse 35 to the end of the chapter, including the verse, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
Bishop Bontrager gave the closing prayer and benediction. He sat down, and Preacher Yoder read the obituary from a sheet of paper. “We are laying Jonas Yost to rest today. He was twenty five years old. Born on the Yost family farm on May 13, 1985 and departed this earth on October 21, 2010. He has 62 relatives including his three brothers and six sisters and his father and mother, Hamish and Eliza Yost. Now, Bruders and Schwesterns, I ask that you stand and file past the coffin for the final viewing.”
Neighbors, friends and relatives filed past the coffin, darting glances at the Yost family to see how they were holding up. The close relatives watched as many friends and neighbors gave them a sad nod. While the last of the viewers gathered outside, the family rose and surrounded the coffin to say their last good byes.
Hamish nodded his head when they were through, and the pallbearers picked the coffin up. They slowly walked outside and placed it on the back of a flatbed springfield wagon. They unfolded a black oil cloth over the coffin. The driver took off slow while the pallbearers got in their carriages to lead the possession behind the wagon. The carriages wound along country roads to the district cemetery. Roads that Hal hadn’t used before. She was glad Noah knew where they were going.
Noah turned the carriage into the parking area and stopped next to buggy 24. The cemetery was laid out in neat rows with granite tombstones all the same size. The only difference about each stone was the name and date of birth and death chiseled in each stone. By the time the Lapp family arrived, the Yost family was standing by the open grave. Men, hats in hand, and women clustered around Jonas’s family to offer words of sympathy and sorrow.
At the bottom of the grave was a rough wooden box for the coffin to sit in. Three boards lay under the bottom of the box to keep the coffin off the ground. That way the ropes the men used to lower the coffin could be pulled free afterward. The pallbearers lowered the coffin gently into the grave and pulled the ropes out. One man picked up the top for the rough box they had left lean against the mound of red dirt. He slid off into the grave and dropped the top in place. Once he climbed out, the pallbearers threw shovels of dirt onto the coffin.
A group of young people sang “Old Rugged Cross” while the pallbearers worked. The sweet sounds of their voices weren’t loud enough to cover up the scraping sounds the shovels made, digging into the fresh pile. The first few shovels full made mournful, hollow sounds as the dirt pelted the wood and scattered.
When the grave was level full, the pallbearers stopped working until after the service. They would mound the rest of the dirt up later after the others left. The bishop stepped forward to ask the congregation to say the Lord’s Prayer silently.
Afterward the mourners shook hands with the family and said their condolences. Some of the women gave Eliza and her daughters hugs. John, Hal and the children went through the line to talk to Hamish and Eliza, a frail woman with black circles around her eyes. Eliza managed a weak smile as she thanked Hal and Emma for taking the time to console her family. They moved out of the way for the next person in line. As they started back for the buggy, John stopped on the edge of a gathering of men to speak to Luke Yoder.
While her father was busy, Emma touched Hal’s arm and whispered in her ear, “The boys want to know if you would like to visit our mother’s grave with us?”
“I’d be honored to go with you,” Hal said, feeling a burst of love for these children that accepted her so easily into their family and their hearts.
Emma led the way over the unlevel ground. The boys held Hal’s hands. As they walked past the stones, the only name that Hal recognized was Roseanna Nisely’s first husband, Emil Miller, the man who drowned in his well. It had been three years since Diane Lapp died, and Amish people were buried in order of their death. Diane’s grave was almost at the end of the row.
They quietly looked at the grave for a few minutes before Emma said to the boys, “We should say a prayer for Mama.” They knelt and bowed their heads. Hal got down beside them.
When the prayer was over, Hal patted the grassy knoll and said softly, “Don’t worry about your family, Diane. They’re doing fine.”
Everyone made their way back to the Yost house for a simple funeral lunch in the tent. They visited as they ate cheese and bologna sandwiches with cake, cookies and pies for dessert. After lunch, the women did the cleanup while the men loaded the bench wagon.
Hal found herself drying dishes while Roseanna Nisely washed.
Roseanna put a dish in the rinse pan as she asked, “Are you very busy at the clinic yet?”
“No, not much, but I hope that gets better,” Hal said, trying to sound optimistic.
“I think it will. Seems lately when you are needed it is for a real emergency like Jonas or Emil,” she said, looking sad as she recalled losing her first husband.
“If that is where I’m needed, I don’t mind,” Hal told her.
“Those times we needed you very much. Hal, have you given any thought to using the clinic as a birthing place?” Roseanna asked causally.
“Jane asked me about that some time ago. I don’t mind, but I need to do some studying on obstetrics so I’m prepared if that happens,” Hal answered.
“Gute. You should study recht away,” Roseanna said with a slight smile.
Thinking the woman had heard something about her condition, Hal asked, “Why?”
Roseanna looked around to see if anyone was close enough to hear and whispered, “Because I will be in need of your help in a few months.”
“Really! That’s wonderful. How soon,” Hal whispered back.
“Sometime in March.”
“How about that! Roseanna, I’m having a baby in March. Our two little ones will grow up together,” Hal said excitedly.
Roseanna brought her wet hands out of the dishwater and gave Hal a quick hug, sending water strains down the back of her dress. Before the other women had time to notice, Roseanna stuck her hands back in the dishwater. Hal pulled a plate out of the rinse water and dried it as if nothing had been said between them.
Later on as before, the carriages filed down the roads in all directions, going home to do chores before dark.
Luke Yoder walked back to the Lapp carriage as the family was getting ready to climb in. He said to John, “See you in the morning at Elton’s?”
“Jah, we can get done tomorrow if we work at it,” John said.
“Gute.” Luke took Emma by the arm to keep her from climbing inside the carriage. “Before you leave, I have wanted to talk to you for some time. With the harvest keeping me busy I have let too much time pass. I want you to know Josh Beiler has gone back to Minnesota. As soon as Levi told me what happened after the Yost singing, I waited for Josh to come home. I told him to leave our community. There was no room for someone like him here.”
“denki,” Emma said quietly, looking at the ground as if she would like to be swallowed up.
“It was an uncomfortable, scary thing for you to go through. I hated to hear that Josh did that to you. I am proud of the way you took care of yourself. I hope my daughters will have the notion of how to protect themselves if they are ever in your place.”
“Denki for telling me this. I hope Jennie and Rose never have this happen to them. It is gute to know that Josh is no longer around for us to fear,” Emma said. “Now we must all go home and say no more about this.” She turned and climbed into the back of the carriage with her brothers.