Halfway through it, I had a moment of hope, something out of Hollywood, that she’d hear him playing and wake up. Even after it ended, I kept looking from the monitor beside her to her eyes, begging silently for her to just wake up.
I begged anyone who was listening for that miracle.
I begged even as Jarrod said to her, “I promised I’d sing it for you, Maude. I hope I did it justice.”
I begged even as we sat with her for two hours, still letting her know that she wasn’t alone.
I begged even as I kissed her goodbye and lay my head next to her hand on the bed.
Miracles happened, and Marianne Crew was too strong to give in.
Jarrod12.43am
Katy was finally asleep, so I picked up my guitar and walked back down to Maude’s room.
Opening the door, I pulled up a seat next to her bed and started strumming on my guitar again. I’d been listening to the song for two hours now and I could see it being played in my head, so I hoped I could do it justice for her.
“Katy told me this was a special song for both of you, beautiful girl, so I figured I’d keep you company.”
And then I closed my eyes and started playing Cheer Down. I can’t say I was even close to Harrison or Clapton when it came to playing the guitar, but the lyrics to both songs were more important than anything. I could picture her nodding her hair, her big hair not moving with it, and saying it was the happiest moment of her life. I got what the lyrics to the song meant, and to me they were perfect for the relationship she had with her granddaughter.
When I got to the end, I went straight into my favorite Clapton song, Running On Faith. Right now it was the only thing I had - faith - so singing it was also my plea for faith to help us.
Unfortunately, the type of faith that I’d been thinking wasn’t to be, so instead I had to have faith that she was at peace and knew I’d keep her daughter and granddaughter safe and happy.
I sat with her in silence for twenty minutes once I was done, until a nurse came in to check her over. Giving her a smile, I walked back out and down the hallway to where Katy’s room was. There hadn’t been any need to keep her in the ICU after they’d come to their conclusions, and the family knew she wouldn’t have wanted it to be like that anyway, so they had moved her as close to her granddaughter as they could. If you asked me, it was still too far, but while we’d been in with her earlier they’d moved Perkins off the ward, so that was something at least.
Getting back into the uncomfortable recliner beside her bed, I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but I couldn’t switch off.
That’s why when I saw a doctor running down the hallway with two nurses behind him thirty-three minutes later I knew she was gone.
Katy was going to need me to be strong for her, so I spent the hours between then and when she woke up and heard the news letting it all out and getting myself together to be her rock.NineteenJarrodFive days later…
I was just putting the cufflinks into the holes in my shirt and looking at the time on the clock in Katy’s bedroom when she got home. All she’d said as she left this morning was that she and some of the ladies were going to get something for Maude, nothing more than that. Seeing that we only had twenty minutes left until we had to leave, she was cutting it close.
And then she came up the stairs as fast as her bruised and battered body would allow, her arm still in a sling from where the bastard had dislocated her elbow. She was healing, she was alive, but physically and emotionally she was still very broken. The day that Maude died, I’d told her that I loved her and I was going to get her through this. After hearing her say she loved me back, even as she her heart was breaking over the loss of her best friend and grandmother, I promised her I’d get her through this and she’d given me that burden to shoulder for her by assuring me that she knew I would and could. Any man who loves his woman as much as I loved mine would move mountains for their woman, but her belief in their ability to do that was worth more than any word would ever be able to describe – and she’d given me that.
So, day by day, I was working at fulfilling that promise, even if it took the rest of our lives.