Somewhere Beyond Tomorrow

As the early summer morning dawned, breathing became increasingly difficult. Each breath became more painful, more agonizing, but the pain did not stop time from moving. By one o'clock, the afternoon was bright and sunny, but Kathleen Beery lay in her bed, first hot, then cold, not resting, but working continuously to take oxygen in and push carbon dioxide out. The bed, yielding not even a little comfort to her tired aching body, now quivered with the spasm of coughs that interrupted the never-ending task of breathing.

Kathy lay alone in the hot mobile home. Her husband had taken their two children out for ice cream so that she could rest; but they had been gone for so long, and Kathy was beginning to feel the ever present fear surfacing. She was failing fast. The asthma would not respond to any of the medication she was taking. She knew that she would have to go to the hospital, soon.

Coughing again and again, until the bile in her stomach rose in her swollen throat, choking her, tears flowing down her thin face, she cried out, "Oh, God, please!" She fell back on her pillows and pushed her long sweat-soaked hair back from her face. Her eyes closed and her breathing again took on a labored rhythm. Wet lashes lay on dark rings that encircled her deep green eyes. She was so tired-tired of fighting, of surviving, of willing herself, again, to live.

Her memory drifted-always sick, always crying, "Please"...always nothingness in return. At the age of two she had cried herself sick. She'd been sick ever since. She pictured her father, dead now, but alive and vibrant in her mind, smiling, leaving-always leaving her. Tears flowed from her now sleeping eyes, dreaming of childhood.

At eight years of age, she lay in the deep snow of winter and made angels. Her arms and legs waving, she was pulled straight up off the playground by other little angel-makers, toe prints giving feet to holy skirts. Kathy's clothing was very wet and after the school recess she slipped out of the cold dripping play pants that she wore under her dresses and hung them under her coat. The teacher was very angry about so many wet children and, eventually, put the blame on Kathy. Cheeks, still red from the cold, burned with anger towards her playmates. True, it was her game that her father had shown her, but it wasn't her fault all the children were wet. No one made them make the snow angels.

After school, Kathy walked home. Her mother had not come to pick her up. She never knew for sure, most of those early days, if her mother would pick her up or not. This was a "not" day. She was bitter cold by the time she reached home. Her pants were crispy from the wet and cold. Her steps slowed down a little more with each shiver, and she reached home later than usual; her steps, finally reaching the front door, were directed to the back by her mother, towards the laundry, where winter clothing could be cared for properly. Kathy was too cold to think in those logical forms. Again, anger rose in her. She was being punished for making snow angels.

"Oh, please...," she cried inwardly, her teeth chattering, treading the frozen steps up to the back door. Warmth flooded out as the door opened up. The little porch heater merrily waited for her to come into the bright room. She didn't notice. She just stood there, beside the warm stove.

Her mother brushed the snow off the back steps and came back into the cheery room to scold, for not getting things off and put away. She saw the angry tears in Kathy's eyes, making the green even darker. "What on earth is wrong with you? Why aren't you getting those..., those...? Kathy, you're frozen!" She quickly stripped off the outer garments, but she had to lay the child on the cold linoleum to pull off the frozen play pants, now stuck to Kathy's little cotton dress.

The floor felt warm to the child; yet, no words came forth to explain anything. But a fear crept upon the child, a knowing kind of fear.

By the end of the week, Kathy developed a sore throat, but had, determinedly, gone to school at the last minute. "If you'll take me," she said to her mother. By Christmas, Kathy was confined to her bed with nephritis-kidney infection so severe that blood was discoloring her urine.

The hospital was not adequate her mother had insisted, and had pled with the old doctor to let her keep the child at home. By February, Kathy only weighed twenty-eight pounds. She was not doing well. Other children around the country, who had strep throat complications, were dying. But Kathy survived, and by spring, she was back in school, weak, thin, but warm and picked up every afternoon by her mother. Her father stayed close to home that year.

"Mom, look what dad got us!" Kathy woke with a start, coughing, weak. Her husband came into the room. "Not any better, I see. You gonna die? Want to go to the hospital? Well, what do ya' think?"

"Yes," whispered Kathy, "now."

"Now? What'll I do with the kids? Well, call the sitter and get her over here, and I'll take you up there. Get some clothes on and comb your hair."

Kathy barely had enough air in her lungs to talk to the sitter over the phone, let alone get out of bed and get dressed. She put on a pretty little robe and ran a brush though her hair. It didn't help. She stood at the doorway of her bedroom. "I'm ready," she said hoarsely to her husband who was watching television.

"Like that?" he demanded to know as the sitter from across the street walked into the aluminum home.

"Yes." Kathy grabbed onto the edge of the television to support herself as she edged towards the door.

"Well, wait a minute while I see this..."

"Now!" Kathy yelled in a whisper, "and help me walk." She started coughing again-not enough oxygen her brain told her. She tried to pull some air in and hold it, but only succeeded in choking again.

Joe Beery's embarrassment shined out from his face as he helped Kathy out of the door. Her brain whirled with dizziness, and wobbly legs tried harder to help her so he wouldn't have to be her support. Yet, he had to hold her trembling body to his as they walked towards the vehicle. Their neighbors and their children, working and playing in each yard, stopped and watched.

"Go on around and get in," Joe said as he turned loose of her and hopped into the field truck parked at the curb.

"Can't... we...take the car?"

"Just get in. Ya' wanna go, don't ya?" She nodded her head in answer and held onto the body of the pickup. Tears filled her eyes as she meekly slid into the dusty vehicle.