If I Should Die Before I Wake by Lurlene McDaniel Read Free Book Online Page A

But all the activity had really tired Matt, so he had gone back to his room and his family had left by seven o’clock.
    Deanne checked to see when her father would be ready to leave, but a sudden emergency had put him in the operating room at seven-thirty. She went to his office and tried to watch TV for a while. Then she tried to sleep. But she couldn’t do either.
    So, she walked quietly down the halls, drawn like a magnet toward Matt’s room. She slipped inside. She could see his resting form on the bed. Deanne slipped over to the side of his bed and looked down on him.
    His arm was laying across his face, covering his forehead and eyes. His mass of curly hair was laying against the pillow. She wanted to let him know how much she cared.
    “Don’t go.” His voice startled her.
    Deanne jumped back. “Oh, Matt. I’m so sorry. I-I didn’t mean to wake you.”
    “I wasn’t asleep,” he said. “I hate to go to sleep anymore.” He raised himself up on his elbow and peered at her through the darkness. She listened to his husky voice.
    “Do you want me to get a nurse? She could give you something,” Deanne suggested.
    “No,” Matt said. “You don’t understand.” He paused. Then he said, “When I was a little boy my mom taught me my first prayer. I’m sure you know it. It goes:
    ‘Now I lay me down to sleep,
    I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
    If I should die before I wake,
    I pray the Lord my soul to take.’”
    “I know that one,” Deanne nodded.
    “One night it occurred to me that I could die in my sleep,” Matt told her. “After that, I was so scared of going to sleep. I slept with a light on for months. Silly, huh?”
    Deanne said nothing.
    He continued. “And now—now I really might die in my sleep. I don’t want to do that,” he whispered. “If I die, I want it to be in the daylight. I want to meet the sun.”
    “Don’t talk that way, Matt.” Deanne reached out and took his hand. “You’re not going to die.”
    He plopped back down onto the bed. “Could you stay with me for a while?” he asked. “Just for a while. Just until I get to sleep?”
    “Of course, I can,” Deanne said, squeezing his hand.
    “Somehow, it’s not so hard when someone’s with me—when someone’s holding on.”
    “I’ll be right here,” she told him. She pulled a chair over next to his bed, never letting go of his hand.
    From down the hall, she could still hear the night sounds of the hospital.

Eight
    “D ad, do people with cancer ever get
well?” Deanne blurted out the question
as her father sat reading in his woodpaneled
study.
    Dr. Vandervoort put down his medical journal and stared at his daughter. Deanne’s face was troubled. She knew she must look worried. But she
had
to talk to someone about what she was feeling inside.
    “Come sit down,” her father said.
    She went over to the brown leather sofa across from his desk and sat down. Its surface felt smooth and cool. She always liked his study. It smelled of leather and old books. She felt warm and welcomed in the brown and navy blue-colored room.
    “First of all,” Dr. Vandervoort began, “cancer is not just one disease. It’s a group of diseases. There are many kinds of cancers. A
cancer
is a group of mutant cells that begin to grow uncontrollably and crowd out normal cells. No one knows why it occurs in children.”
    Deanne nodded. She understood. But what she really wanted to know was if people were ever cured of cancer.
    “And yes,” her father continued, “people do get well. Sometimes they go into remission and it never comes back. Sometimes, we can operate then treat the patient with radiation and chemotherapy—and it’s completely gone.”
    Deanne let out an audible sigh. Her father looked at her sharply. “But,” he said in his most authoritative voice, “sometimes, despite all the treatments, all the surgery, all the skill and knowledge of an entire staff of medical experts, we can’t save a cancer patient.”
    Deanne