On The Ground or In The Ground

A Story by Kaitlyn Green

A tale of love, mystery, and medical devastation.

I was at home reading the newspaper when I heard a knock on the door. It was 7 A.M. so I was wondering who was knocking on my door this early.

When I open up the door a cheerful smile greeted me. “Are you Mrs. Steinman?” The man said.

“Yes. Can I help you sir?” I questioned.

“I have a package here for you ma’am,” he said.

Delighted, I quickly signed for the package, closed the door. I was eager to see what was inside of the box.

Inside a card read “Shirley, this has been a long time coming, I love you. Happy Birthday”.

Mr. Steinman walked into the room upon me opening the card. Further inside the box was a glass vase holding the most beautiful red roses I have ever seen.

“Who are those from?” questioned my husband.

“I am not sure,” puzzled.

“Was it from an ex-boyfriend?” I thought to myself. “But I have been happily married for over thirty years”

Who could it be from? Why were they sending me gifts? Is this something to be worried about? Is it a secret admirer? Is it a joke? My head pounded with questions.

The mystery of who sent me the flowers and the card kept me up all night. But right as I fell asleep an idea woke me up.

“Maybe the person who sent me the flowers and card was someone who knew me” Then I realized… “If the flowers and the card were sent from someone who knows me, they would have known that my birthday was five months ago.”

As the weeks go by, I keep getting mysterious love letters, cards, money, flowers, and chocolates. One day I had asked the mail man if there was any way to track the address that the packages are coming from. The mail man said that without a return address there would be no way to track the gifts I have been receiving.

Chapter Two:

One year passed since I got my first “gift” from my “secret admirer”, my sister-in-law called me to tell me she found my husband unconscious on the bathroom floor when she came over for a visit that afternoon. I fled work as fast as I could, racing to my husband’s feeble side.

My sister-in-law rushed my husband to the emergency room at the local hospital.

When I got to the hospital my sister-in-law, Aimee, met me in the waiting room; before I could speak she told me the doctor already said it was too late.

As the doctor came out to tell me what happened I broke down crying; making a huge scene.

I was devastated. It felt like someone took a knife and stabbed me right through the heart.

The doctor finally got me to stop crying and sit back down in the waiting room chair. He started to speak, but at the same time I felt my stomach churning and my eyes started to water.

“Ma’am I am sorry to tell you this but….” The doctor started.

I broke out crying again.

The doctor pulled Aimee aside and told her the news, she was shaken by the news but before the doctor left the doctor handed her a pink envelope. She hugged the doctor and turned around and headed in my direction. She walked over towards me with a miserable look on her face.

“Shirley, the doctor said that your husband suffered a brain tumor.” She said slowly.

Having second thoughts on what my sister-in-law just said to me I remembered my grandfather had a brain tumor but he knew about it months before he passed. Was there something that my husband didn’t tell me? Did he keep this a secret from me? Did he even know? Again the questions raced through my mind like a speed track.

Before I could open my mouth to express my thoughts my sister-in-law handed me the pink envelope, which was given to her by the doctor. I looked up at her and sluggishly grabbed the envelope. I placed it in my lap and stared blankly at it for what felt like an hour.

“The doctor said your husband’s last words were…”Give this to Shirley, she must know”, Aimee said.

When I opened it there was a letter inside. The letter format looked astonishingly similar but I couldn’t remember where I had seen it before. The letter read….

To the love of my life,

Shirley,

For the past year you have been receiving gifts from an unknown sender. All of those gifts were in-fact from me. I sent those to you because last year I went to the doctors’ office for a check-up and they did a scan on my brain to test for early signs of Alzheimer’s, but what they found was something considerably worse. They found stage four brain tumor. Stage four being the worst, the doctors told me they didn’t know how long I had to live.

If you remember on our wedding day, we wrote our own vows. The first line of my vows I wrote for you was that I would love you FOREVER. I hope by sending you all these gifts it made you happy and showed you that I am a man of his word, and I will always love you whether I am on the ground or in the ground.

Love,

Franklin James Steinman

I gasped.

“Wow!” I thought.

I never would have expected all of those gifts were from Frank.

Chapter Three:

I knew from the minute I woke up this morning this would be the most emotionally challenging days of my life. It was the day of Frank’s funeral.

I got dressed in a stunning black suit that Frank had bought me only weeks before his medical down spiral.

“I wonder if the reason Frank bought me this suit was because of his illness and he wanted me to wear it to his funeral.”

My day had barely started and my head was already spinning. For some reason I didn’t feel my normal self. I felt sick to my stomach.

“It doesn’t matter how I feel today, today is a day about celebrating the life of my soul mate.”

Both my son and daughter came over today so we could all ride together in one car to the funeral service.

“Mom, are you okay, you don’t look so good?” asked my son Bill.

“I am just a little depressed and under the weather right now, I am alright,” I responded.

But truth was, I didn’t feel sick anymore, I just had a strange feeling inside of me. I had the oddest feeling that something bad was going to happen today.

The closer we got to the funeral home the stronger the feeling inside of me grew. It grew to the point where it was unbearable I had to tell my children.

“Oh now Mom, everything is going to be alright, like you said. It’s probably just the situation that you are in, with Dad’s passing and all,” said my daughter cheerfully.

That was my daughter for you, and always positive person. I guess after what has happened lately; I needed to be around people like her. So I decided to try to ignore the odd feeling as much as I could.

By the time we had arrived I lost thought of my utterly strange instinct and went on with the services.

As the service came to a close it was time to shut the casket, looking down at the frigid cold husband lye there was one of the worse mistakes I had ever made. Instead of tears rushing town my face, like earlier that week at the hospital, the odd sensation struck me like lightning striking a tree.

“CRRRAAAAAAASSSHHHHHHHHH”

With a loud thud I was on the ground. I had passed out; luckily there was a doctor at the funeral home that night. He told my children that I passed out at seeing my husband lye there dead in front of me.

But some believe that my passing out was a sign to my family that my odd feeling was alive and well.

Chapter Four:

The next morning I woke up in the hospital with only some remembrance of what had happened the night before. The only thing that I did happen to remember was the awful feeling I had that something terrible was going to take place.

Was my passing out and ending up in the hospital the “terrible thing” I sensed was going to happen?

Later that evening the hospital let me go, but they told me to lounge around for a few days and get plenty of rest.

Listening to the instructions the hospital gave me, I went to bed right when I got home. I was hoping that all I needed to get back to being myself was some sleep, and I was about to get A LOT of sleep.

Chapter Five:

Today was a big day for my daughter, Kelly! Last month she found out that she is expecting. This would be her second child. This was the day that my daughter was having a big baby shower at the local hotel. She knew I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

“Where is mom at?” questioned Kelly screaming frantically into the phone. While she was on the phone with Bill she mentioned that he should stop by my house and see why I haven’t shown up yet.

Chapter Six:

When Bill arrived to my house he found me sleeping on the couch, problem was….I wasn’t exactly sleeping, I was dead.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God,” screaming Bill looking for the phone to call 911.

“911 What is your emergency?” answered the dispatcher.

“Hello. Yes, my name is Bill Steinman and I need you to send an ambulance to 117 Delano Street”

The dispatcher responded with “Yes, Sir,” and then the line went dead.

By the time the paramedics got to the scene it was too late. I was gone.

Bill had to make the heart-wrenching call to his sister and explain why their mother hadn’t shown up.

When Kelly got there, both her and Bill winched in pain as the paramedics carried my body off to the hospital for an autopsy.

Chapter Seven:

Weeks later the phone ran at Bill Steinman’s house. His wife had answered the phone.

“Bill, it’s the hospital, they have the autopsy report on Shirley completed.”

“Thank you, love,” responded Bill quickly kissing his wife and picking up the phone.

“Hello is this Mr. Bill Steinman?” boomed the voice into the phone.

“Yes this is…is this the medical examiner?” questioned Bill.

“Correct. I am Mr. Henry Johnson. I am the one who performed the autopsy on your mother.”

“How did my mother die?”

“Well, upon running a multitude of tests, our studies come up empty handed. We ran about thirty different tests and all came back to be inconclusive.”

“So you are saying you have no idea exactly how my mother died?”

“Precisely that is what I am saying. All of the tests we ran came back with results that matched the results a living person would have.”

“And by saying that, you are telling me that my mother should still be alive? What if she died from old age? I mean that is always a factor, right?”

“I am afraid not, sir. There were three different tests that we can run to test for signs of aging. The results came back saying that the approximate age of your mother was about 40. The age of your mom was 59.”

“So……”

“Now Bill, listen to me for a minute. This may be a Ludacris statement, but by the looks of it the only way your mom could have died was of a broken heart.”

“So you are telling me that my mom died of a broken heart. That is the dumbest thing I think I have ever heard.”

“Maybe it was just God’s way of saying that these two people belong together, and that nothing, not even death, can separate their love for one another.”

Well there you have it. Some people think I died because of old age and science just couldn't prove it, but others believed the real reason for my passing. Now, this sounds crazy but when God decided it was time for my husband to go, the odd feeling I had was the immense pain felt missing my husband. God made me lucky enough to be with my husband, to live out our marriage vows the way they were written, eternally. But whether I am on the ground or in the ground I will always remember my first hospital visit, was it a sign that eternal love lies DEAD ahead.