The Coma

George Romaine walked into the room that his wife occupied with the intention of going upstairs to settle down with a nice book. Home from work the night was drawing to a close and it was his intent to read as he always did at the close of the night. He was a great reader and enjoyed getting lost in a good book to escape from the realities of life but tonight that would have to change.

Upon entering the room, he saw that his wife was distressed and distraught, she was on the phone talking to someone and after catching the word accident he immediately stopped. His heart rate spiked with fear as he thought of all the things that could be wrong here. He thought of his son at college, who had a motorcycle. Was it him calling to say he had been in a wreck? This was horrible "OH! please, don't let it be my son", he thought.

No sooner had this thought escaped him than his wife dropped the phone in a wave of tears, rushing forward he picked it up and putting it to his ear he said, "Hello?"

"Hello," said the oncoming voice, "This is Scott Harris, I am calling to tell you that your daughter, Elinore Romaine has had a bad accident. The horse she was riding today is dead and she is in a coma, we don't know if she will ever wake up. You need to get out here as soon as possible."

George sat at his daughter's bedside just one week later. It was depressing, he and his wife flew out to Montana from the east coast just one month ago after being told his daughter might not make it. He thought it was his son, how utterly wrong he was. It wasn't that he didn't care for his daughter, but she was so strong and safe whereas his son....

Internally he gave a sigh, he so wanted a better relationship with his son, he didn't have the best relationship with his dad growing up and he so wanted to redeem that with his son but the closer he tried to get to his son the further he became. Anyway, it was his daughter who needed him now not his son and that's what mattered.

In the days following the accident had been hard, praying day and night for any sign of hope of her ever waking but there had been few, only a few hand squeezes and one or two flutters of the eyes, enough to keep them hoping but not enough to keep the despair away.

Since the accident they had learned how it had happened. It seemed her horse of all things had a heart attack and fell on top of her. The horse she was riding was 26 and had been taken out of retirement for her to ride! This was an outrage! What were they thinking?! The school was responsible for this!

He sank back further in his chair with grief, there was no suing of the school, she had signed up for this. Signing a waiver saying she was fully aware of the consequences of her actions. Now not only was his daughter, his precious daughter, so young and carefree, in a coma with little chance of survival- if she did survive they had no idea what state she would wake up in- not only was there little chance of survival but also there was no hope of retribution if she did wake up.

Well with all this weighing on his plate at but least he had done something about it. After getting here one month ago he and his wife had talked to the doctor and had asked about her condition and the likelihood of her surviving this and although it wasn't good there was hope. After arriving six days ago he and his wife had made friends with this priest who believed in the same God as they.

(Now I know it isn't popular to believe in this God but I pray you will forgive me for the sake of this story)

As it is, he and his wife are Christians and after making friends with this priest they had been in continual prayer and supplication to the Lord for our daughters survival. Today after she had been finally taken off of the induced coma she was in and as she still wasn't waking they had taken action.

Together with the priest he and his wife had anointed their daughters head with healing oil believing that their God would save her and now staring at her now sleeping form he prayed it was so. She looked so small sleeping there, tubes sticking out from every which way, he had never seen so many tubes in his life. Her head, mouth, nose all clogged up; IV's delivering medicines, a catheter, and something to check her heart rate. He just wanted her to wake so then maybe they could take the tubes away.

He just sat there, staring at her thin body, time just seemed to be wasting away, worry and fear crowding in and still he just sat. Her whole life would change after today. He wondered what that would be. Would she be able to walk again or even think or would she be like a vegetable not able to live her life like a normal human, would she ever laugh again! Maybe she would be there able to comprehend what is going on but not fully coherent and he and his wife would always have their little girl with him. As much as that depressed him for her sake of not being able to live her own life, it also cheered him that they would always have her with them that when all the other kids had gone their own way she would stick by their side like the faithful daughter they knew her to be.

Yet another thought came to him that she would be coherent and able to live on her own but paralyzed from the hips down, living life in a wheelchair from that day forth, never able to run or even feel her legs there. As he sat there contemplating these things, he almost missed the rustle of his daughter moving from her place on the bed.  He looked up watching her tiny form shift ever so slightly. If he hadn’t already been watching intently he would have missed her eyes flutter. Now intent on his daughter's form, he watched her wiggle. As if fearful that saying something would cause this to stop he sat there silently, spellbound. Her eyes opened again, this time they stayed open and after glancing around the room they fixed on him. Then ever so softly, with the room as silent as a cricket, he heard her whisper, “Dad?”.