RONALD DOTSON - GRANDPA

Ronald Dotson has been a reader for as long as he has been able to read. His favorite genre has always been fantasy and science fiction, or “imaginative fiction” as it is sometimes known.  He practically cut his teeth on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan and John Carter of Mars series. Mr. Dotson has worked for the federal government for over twenty years and hopes to retire soon so that he can concentrate on the creative aspects of his life. The writer lives in the North Georgia Mountains and is an avid hiker, biker and photographer as well as a writer of short fiction. But, above all other callings, he is a “Grandpa!” He is the father of seven children, four grandchildren, two dogs and a cat. Mr. Dotson plans to continue writing, riding and righting as his muse decrees!    

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Grandpa
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It was the same dream again, like so many other nights. He awoke in a cold sweat, feeling terrified and helpless. Always, after the dream, he was wide awake, unable to go back to sleep. He would lie in bed trying to analyze the dream, trying to make some sense of it. Always failing. Eventually he gave up and got out of bed because he hated lying there staring at the darkness when he couldn’t sleep. He had to get up and do something…anything!
As always in the dream, he felt as if he was walking through a heavy mist, searching for something very important. After moving through the mist for what seemed like forever, he always began to hear the sound of a child crying in lost, mournful way. Searching as hard as he could, he could never find the source of the crying. As he sat up and got out of bed, his wife rolled over and looked at him.
“The dream again?” she asked.
“Mmm,” he grunted morosely. “I think I’ll get ready and go down to the hospital for a while.” His nightmares had started right after their granddaughter Shelly’s accident.  He had slept very little since. His wife worried that the stress would affect his health if something didn’t change soon.
Shelly had just turned six when she drowned. Shelly and her parents were on a winter vacation in the mountains where they had rented a quaint little cabin next to a small lake with the coldest, clearest water they had ever seen. There was a little pier that went out a few feet and Shelly loved standing at the end, throwing stones as far as she could out into the water. She would gather a handful of them and run out to the end of the pier, under her mother’s watchful eyes. Her mother had forbid her to be on the pier alone. Early one morning just after daybreak, she woke up before any else in the cabin and impulsively decided to go out on the pier. She must have ran out and slipped at the end and went into the water because they found a few little pebbles scattered on the boards. Shelly had never learned to swim. When they found her body it was estimated that she had been in the cold water for at least 45 minutes. They were fortunate to have cell service so, as her father and mother worked over her lifeless body performing CPR, an air ambulance flew in to transport her to the nearest hospital. Whether from a combination of her parent’s cool heads and skills learned during their service in the military or the effects of cold water drowning on children, the crew of the helicopter were able to bring her vitals back to something stable enough for transport. After arriving at the ER, the staff there worked to restore her to normal and succeeded but she did not regain consciousness. The doctors could not explain why. She had recovered to the point of breathing on her own and she had brain activity but she did not wake up. She had been in a coma-like state for over four weeks.
Grandpa was devastated by her accident. The two had been very close since she was old enough to walk. When they were together, his entire being focused on her. He spoiled her shamelessly. When he thought about her, he could feel his heart swell with love for her. Since she had been in the hospital he visited her every day. He usually took a book from his collection and read to her. Her favorites before the accident had been stories with princesses and dragons.
The visit began as most others. He always spoke to the staff when he reached her floor. Most of them knew him. They often let him in before visiting hours. As he sat down at her bedside and opened the book, he faltered. When he looked at her, all of his feelings for her rushed out and threatened to overwhelm him.
“I feel so helpless and useless!” he whispered with tears in his eyes. “I would give my life to save yours! Without hesitation, without a second thought! But all I can do is sit here and watch you fade!”
The medical staff had explained the physical effects that long term coma patients faced if they didn’t wake after a few weeks. Even with physical and respiratory therapists working on Shelly as she lay unresponsive, muscles drawing and the risk of pneumonia were among several physiological problems that could occur. Too long a period in a coma and Shelly might never completely recover from the physical effects, if she ever actually woke up.
As his sorrow took hold, Grandpa couldn’t stay in the room, he felt smothered…he had to get out of there and get some air! He was downstairs and walking out of the hospital entrance before he realized his whereabouts. As he walked down the sidewalk towards the parking lot, he suddenly had a terrible pain in his chest! He couldn’t breathe! It felt like a heavy weight was pressing hard on his chest. He felt himself slide down into darkness and he fell to the ground.
“We need a crash cart and gurney in the North parking lot ASAP!” shouted a nurse as she ran in the Emergency Room doors. “There is a man collapsed in the parking lot. He’s unconscious, shallow breathing and erratic heartbeat!” Hospital employees had found Grandpa during shift change. By the time the crash cart arrived, he was in full cardiac arrest. Before he could be moved to an emergency room, he had to be stabilized. The doctor and nurses did their work getting a line started, a monitor and oxygen.
Grandpa became aware of his surrounding slowly. He seemed to be somewhere in a misty forest slowly walking along a pathway. The path was well defined but the woods faded into the mist on each side of the trail. Though somewhat confused, he somehow knew that he was supposed to follow the trail. As he continued on, up ahead he saw the mist begin to thin as the trail neared the bottom of a hill. The path continued up the hill towards its summit. Just as he was about to start up the rise, he felt a strong, sharp pain in his chest. Back through the misty woods on the trail he had just walked, he heard a murmuring like voices that he couldn’t quite understand. He felt compelled to turn and go back the way he had come.
“Okay we have a sinus rhythm! Let’s get him stabilized and inside,” said the ER doctor working on Grandpa. The doctor and nurses began to prepare him to be moved inside.
As Grandpa retrace his steps along the path, he saw that he was nearing a glade in the forest. When he approached the edge of the glade he tried to see through  the trees bordering the clearing but everything was strangely obscured. Just as he was about to break through and enter the clearing, he heard the sound of a girl crying back in the misty woods somewhere off the trail. He stopped and turned towards the pitiful lost sound that was strangely familiar. Leaving the path, he began to search the mist for the crying child.
“We’re losing him again!” In an ER room, the doctor and nurses were still working on Grandpa trying to stabilize him. The staff worked fervently trying to save Grandpa.
As Grandpa neared the crying sounds, he began to see the form of a young girl sitting on the ground with her arms wrapped around her as she sobbed. It was Shelly! He rushed over to her, bent down and wrapped his arms around her.
“Don’t cry anymore, Shell! Grandpa’s got you now,” he said as he picked her up and held her close.
“Oh, Grandpa! I heard your voice reading stories! I knew you would find me!”
“It’s going to be okay now, sweetheart,” he said as he soothed her.
He put her on the ground and held her hand as they made their way back to the path in the woods.
The ER doctor had exhausted his repertoire of skills trying to save the man that lay on the bed before him. Nothing had worked.
Grandpa and Shelly reached the trail and as they set foot on it, Grandpa knew what he had to do. It broke his heart knowing that he was going to have to tell Shelly goodbye…that he would have to leave her. He knew he couldn’t go back. Knew it was too late. But he knew it wasn’t too late for her. She still had her whole life ahead of her.
As they followed the pathway back towards the clearing, Grandpa as holding Shelly’s hand He tried to soak it all in. His last brief moments with her. All too soon they neared the edge of the woods. Grandpa stopped walking but held onto Shelly’s hand for as long as he could.
“I can’t go back with you, sweetheart. I have to go up there,” he said pointing towards the hilltop above the misty woods.
“But Grandpa, I want to stay with you!”
“Oh sweetheart,” he said hugging her close, “you have so much to see and do! It’s not time for you to go but someday when you are ready to climb that hill, I’ll be waiting for you at the top.”
The ER doctor had done his best, he felt.
“I’m going to call it,” he said looking at the clock on the wall. It was 7:55 AM. At the same moment, on the third floor, in her hospital bed, Shelly opened her eyes and softly said, “Grandpa.”