The Warm Places
By Merry Marinello © 1989
I had this dream the summer after my dad died. I was eight. A house opened like my
hinged Fisher-Price doll house, so that I could see the two halves side by side. In one
half of the house, downstairs right, my parents were sleeping. Upstairs left, in the other
half and in separate rooms, my brother and I were sleeping.
I slept lightly in my doll-house bed, listening for sounds beyond sleep. There was
another me who did not sleep, but watched the house. Were there stars and moon, or
darkness or air or house around this house? I didn’t know.
The watching me could only see the man in black come in the little white door. I
wanted him to flip the door-bell ringer up and down so everyone could hear him, but
only I saw and heard.
The listening me grew knot-gutted in my sleep. The man in black made no noise
though; how did the listening me know he was there? The watching me saw the
unhinged halves of our house and the silent man go into my parents bedroom.
He had a gun. No light polished its blackness, no bullets brought smoke or flashes of
sound, yet I watched him shoot first Dad, then Mom. No aiming, no screams, it was
quick, quiet, over. He came upstairs into my brother’s room and shot him too. They
were all dead. I was frozen. The watching me came inside the house, closer and
closer. This me had been big, but now I grew smaller. I filled my room and then
almost, almost was me again as he pointed, aimed, shot precisely at my navel and both
of me woke up.
The house was quiet. I thought I should be afraid, but I did not fear, it was not real. I
wanted to dream it again, to look more closely at the man in black, to search for an
opening in his ski mask, to see frightening whites of eyes around cold coal blackness so
I could wake up screaming, sweating, fearful. I wanted to wake up as someone who
would run downstairs and climb into my mother’s bed and cry in her arms. I wanted
to wake up all of me.
There was peace and fear and emptiness. What would we do all day? The peace
didn’t feel like peace after four and a half years of blood and tubes and needles and
screams and racing to Iowa City because of the capital “K” capital “D” Kidney
Disease.
John and I sat long, sibling hours in the waiting room because the doctors would not let
us see him. I would get up and weave through the cafeteria tables with their green and
orange chairs. Down a corridor and around and maybe in another room I would find
the drinking fountain and stand on my red tennis-shoed tip-toes for a drink. It was a
horrid, swimming pool gulp when I wasn’t really thirsty, but it was something to do.
Then it would take me a long time to get back to the table because I was lost. I would
find the table though, after a few hours or fifteen minutes and sit and chatter at John
until he would be sick of chatter. Then I would sit and trace the seats and screws and
tables and air with my finger.
The rows of chairs and tables became rows of cornstalks in fields, endlessly waving
until we’d get back to Dubuque. What was the big secret? I wondered. Why wouldn’
t they let me see the room and Dad, to scratch his nose for him when his arms were
tied down with tubes and pain and The Machine? At home I was the only one who
could scratch his nose right.
Things were normal again. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we pulled out
machine and tubes and needles and scalpal. He lay himself down on their bed, in their
bedroom, and with needle, shot, with scalpal, slit, with tubes, inserted, with machine,
sucked blood through tissues, tissues, tissues that should have been in his body.
Mom and Dad would yell and argue and panic with dials and, spilling the normal pint of
blood, subside in an hour or two. The run was 12 hours from set-up to clean-up.
I made sure the dinner didn’t burn. Especially the chocolate pudding. It was the kind
you have to cook on the stove until it bubbles and thickens and smells so chocolaty.
Mom would help me spoon it into bowls and put them in the refrigerator until the skin
was thick and dark. The skin was my favorite part. I loved those moments with her.
The machine would beep its little red-light beeps and my mother’s pounding foosteps
would go to him. I heard his screams as his legs charley-horsed from the machine
sucking blood and water out of tissue. He’d scream and scream and scream until I
could no longer feel my heart. I’d scream with him, inside of me, but I couldn’t hear
me scream. The house was so cold. Then he’d look at me with his eyes and I could
feel my heart again, and it was warm.
The night he died there were blood-red sirens filling the valley where we lived, but I
can’t remember hearing them. They lit up the night with shadows and trees and
neighbors standing at the top of the hill, watching.
I wondered what they felt. I could not hear them; I could only watch them through
glass. Red and people and glare, it was television, it was faraway dreaming,
dreaming. They couldn’t see me, and they couldn’t know me. No one on television
can reach through that screen and touch me with their hands. They live behind glass,
and I live behind glass, and they affect me but never know it. When I turn off my
television, they are gone.
I could not turn off my window. Glass sealed me off from sounds, and nothing seemed
real. There were only motions, movements, no interaction. I was alone in my room.
Sirens must have screamed that night, but my only memory is red.
Later, one of the nurses from the hospital took me for a walk, and I watched the world
from black-haunted eyes. She held me, the glass being between my heart and hers.
My body cried, but I could only watch through the window. I couldn’t hear my sobs.
She held and hugged my body but I was so far away and so old. Older than the eight-
year-old I was when his eyelids closed on me.
Hi God? How are you? I’m not too good tonight. I miss him. Grandma says
there are no tears in heaven. We cry because we miss him, and he misses us but
he’s so happy because he’s with you and we’ll be with him too some day. She
says he doesn’t hurt anymore and that makes me glad…but I hurt, God. Hold
me.
I felt his Fatherly arms around me like the warmth from Daddy’s eyes, and I knew I
wasn’t alone.
God, tell Daddy I love him, and give him a smile from me. He always loved my
smile.
As I grew, I found there were more warm places like this one, places the Lord
longed to enter in and commune with me. I remember the freedom of riding my bike to
Mt. Carmel, the wind combing my hair as if with His loving fingers. The quiet of the
bluff overlooking the Mississippi, where He spoke without words, I am here, I’m not
going away, I like being with you. The college summer with Mom as we laughed
through England, healing together. The places in my heart that I had closed off from
God, man, and myself. These were the places God most longed to touch and make
warm, to hold me close as with the gaze of a loving father.
Then came marriage, and children. I remember holding Anna as a baby—how she
longed to be held and rocked for long hours. I was tired and sometimes wondered,
God, why? But he used that baby love to open again those places of pain—the loss
of my Dad through Death, and now the loss of my husband through Lyme that left Him
unable to communicate or make decisions. Pain unleashed pain, like a monster
threatening me with its deep and profound tentacles of loneliness.
God held me for long hours as I held Anna and I opened my heart to Him. He cried
with me as He wept with Mary and Martha over Lazarus' death. God brought
comfort to lessen the pain in the rooms of my heart long locked off—making them now
warm places for He and I to commune, for me to hear again, I am here, I’m not
going away, I like being with you. I care about what hurts you.
God knows what it’s like to be lonely, to watch the one you love hurt—He watched
with searing agony as Jesus died on the cross. And yet He also watched with a
profound, mysterious, wondrous joy—for we are worth that much to Him. His love is
exceeding in the warm places, in His dwelling place with us. He waits, as always, with
open arms, for us to come.
About the author
back to Hope Stories
By Merry Marinello © 1989
I had this dream the summer after my dad died. I was eight. A house opened like my
hinged Fisher-Price doll house, so that I could see the two halves side by side. In one
half of the house, downstairs right, my parents were sleeping. Upstairs left, in the other
half and in separate rooms, my brother and I were sleeping.
I slept lightly in my doll-house bed, listening for sounds beyond sleep. There was
another me who did not sleep, but watched the house. Were there stars and moon, or
darkness or air or house around this house? I didn’t know.
The watching me could only see the man in black come in the little white door. I
wanted him to flip the door-bell ringer up and down so everyone could hear him, but
only I saw and heard.
The listening me grew knot-gutted in my sleep. The man in black made no noise
though; how did the listening me know he was there? The watching me saw the
unhinged halves of our house and the silent man go into my parents bedroom.
He had a gun. No light polished its blackness, no bullets brought smoke or flashes of
sound, yet I watched him shoot first Dad, then Mom. No aiming, no screams, it was
quick, quiet, over. He came upstairs into my brother’s room and shot him too. They
were all dead. I was frozen. The watching me came inside the house, closer and
closer. This me had been big, but now I grew smaller. I filled my room and then
almost, almost was me again as he pointed, aimed, shot precisely at my navel and both
of me woke up.
The house was quiet. I thought I should be afraid, but I did not fear, it was not real. I
wanted to dream it again, to look more closely at the man in black, to search for an
opening in his ski mask, to see frightening whites of eyes around cold coal blackness so
I could wake up screaming, sweating, fearful. I wanted to wake up as someone who
would run downstairs and climb into my mother’s bed and cry in her arms. I wanted
to wake up all of me.
There was peace and fear and emptiness. What would we do all day? The peace
didn’t feel like peace after four and a half years of blood and tubes and needles and
screams and racing to Iowa City because of the capital “K” capital “D” Kidney
Disease.
John and I sat long, sibling hours in the waiting room because the doctors would not let
us see him. I would get up and weave through the cafeteria tables with their green and
orange chairs. Down a corridor and around and maybe in another room I would find
the drinking fountain and stand on my red tennis-shoed tip-toes for a drink. It was a
horrid, swimming pool gulp when I wasn’t really thirsty, but it was something to do.
Then it would take me a long time to get back to the table because I was lost. I would
find the table though, after a few hours or fifteen minutes and sit and chatter at John
until he would be sick of chatter. Then I would sit and trace the seats and screws and
tables and air with my finger.
The rows of chairs and tables became rows of cornstalks in fields, endlessly waving
until we’d get back to Dubuque. What was the big secret? I wondered. Why wouldn’
t they let me see the room and Dad, to scratch his nose for him when his arms were
tied down with tubes and pain and The Machine? At home I was the only one who
could scratch his nose right.
Things were normal again. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we pulled out
machine and tubes and needles and scalpal. He lay himself down on their bed, in their
bedroom, and with needle, shot, with scalpal, slit, with tubes, inserted, with machine,
sucked blood through tissues, tissues, tissues that should have been in his body.
Mom and Dad would yell and argue and panic with dials and, spilling the normal pint of
blood, subside in an hour or two. The run was 12 hours from set-up to clean-up.
I made sure the dinner didn’t burn. Especially the chocolate pudding. It was the kind
you have to cook on the stove until it bubbles and thickens and smells so chocolaty.
Mom would help me spoon it into bowls and put them in the refrigerator until the skin
was thick and dark. The skin was my favorite part. I loved those moments with her.
The machine would beep its little red-light beeps and my mother’s pounding foosteps
would go to him. I heard his screams as his legs charley-horsed from the machine
sucking blood and water out of tissue. He’d scream and scream and scream until I
could no longer feel my heart. I’d scream with him, inside of me, but I couldn’t hear
me scream. The house was so cold. Then he’d look at me with his eyes and I could
feel my heart again, and it was warm.
The night he died there were blood-red sirens filling the valley where we lived, but I
can’t remember hearing them. They lit up the night with shadows and trees and
neighbors standing at the top of the hill, watching.
I wondered what they felt. I could not hear them; I could only watch them through
glass. Red and people and glare, it was television, it was faraway dreaming,
dreaming. They couldn’t see me, and they couldn’t know me. No one on television
can reach through that screen and touch me with their hands. They live behind glass,
and I live behind glass, and they affect me but never know it. When I turn off my
television, they are gone.
I could not turn off my window. Glass sealed me off from sounds, and nothing seemed
real. There were only motions, movements, no interaction. I was alone in my room.
Sirens must have screamed that night, but my only memory is red.
Later, one of the nurses from the hospital took me for a walk, and I watched the world
from black-haunted eyes. She held me, the glass being between my heart and hers.
My body cried, but I could only watch through the window. I couldn’t hear my sobs.
She held and hugged my body but I was so far away and so old. Older than the eight-
year-old I was when his eyelids closed on me.
Hi God? How are you? I’m not too good tonight. I miss him. Grandma says
there are no tears in heaven. We cry because we miss him, and he misses us but
he’s so happy because he’s with you and we’ll be with him too some day. She
says he doesn’t hurt anymore and that makes me glad…but I hurt, God. Hold
me.
I felt his Fatherly arms around me like the warmth from Daddy’s eyes, and I knew I
wasn’t alone.
God, tell Daddy I love him, and give him a smile from me. He always loved my
smile.
As I grew, I found there were more warm places like this one, places the Lord
longed to enter in and commune with me. I remember the freedom of riding my bike to
Mt. Carmel, the wind combing my hair as if with His loving fingers. The quiet of the
bluff overlooking the Mississippi, where He spoke without words, I am here, I’m not
going away, I like being with you. The college summer with Mom as we laughed
through England, healing together. The places in my heart that I had closed off from
God, man, and myself. These were the places God most longed to touch and make
warm, to hold me close as with the gaze of a loving father.
Then came marriage, and children. I remember holding Anna as a baby—how she
longed to be held and rocked for long hours. I was tired and sometimes wondered,
God, why? But he used that baby love to open again those places of pain—the loss
of my Dad through Death, and now the loss of my husband through Lyme that left Him
unable to communicate or make decisions. Pain unleashed pain, like a monster
threatening me with its deep and profound tentacles of loneliness.
God held me for long hours as I held Anna and I opened my heart to Him. He cried
with me as He wept with Mary and Martha over Lazarus' death. God brought
comfort to lessen the pain in the rooms of my heart long locked off—making them now
warm places for He and I to commune, for me to hear again, I am here, I’m not
going away, I like being with you. I care about what hurts you.
God knows what it’s like to be lonely, to watch the one you love hurt—He watched
with searing agony as Jesus died on the cross. And yet He also watched with a
profound, mysterious, wondrous joy—for we are worth that much to Him. His love is
exceeding in the warm places, in His dwelling place with us. He waits, as always, with
open arms, for us to come.
About the author
back to Hope Stories
© 2004 Dave and Merry Marinello, all rights reserved.
Welcome! Thanks for visiting our little "harbor" amid life's storms. We hope you
will find rest and encouragement in your struggles, big or small. Here you can:
will find rest and encouragement in your struggles, big or small. Here you can:
The Warm Places
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
Hope is My Anchor
Strength for your soul amid life's storms
Strength for your soul amid life's storms