Solutions: The Dilemma of Faith by James Gerard (the giving tree read aloud TXT) 📕

At first, she feared being caught, but as the weeks and months went on she discovered not one orderly, not one of her fellow nurses, any doctors or psychiatrists, not even any of the maintenance staff cared about the waste in the basement; they were of the same belief as that of Council Leader Torres.  Yet, they were banished to the basement and kept alive by a far greater force.

The only visiting family she actually witnessed was the parents and little sister of her favorite friend, Valerie.  The memories of the visit were still vivid.  That night, just having arrived, the elevator doors opened unexpectedly.  A man, a woman in a wheelchair, and a little girl who she estimated to be about ten years old stepped out.

The man, the father, had the look of wealth and importance.  He was dressed in stately attire and immaculately groomed.  His countenance, however, was that of a man annoyed to be there.  Mary found his face to be familiar, but she could never place the man.  She also could not quite understand how his presence brought on instant rage that coursed through the veins, but reasoned the anger stemmed from wondering how a parent could do such a thing to his own daughter.

The woman, the mother, looked fragile and nervous.  She fidgeted about the wheelchair and could not keep her hands still.  Mary instantly knew the nervousness could only come from the anticipation to touch and hold and talk to her precious little child, for she knew the bond between mother and child could never be severed by death or tragedy.  The little girl, however, behaved in a way that spoke volumes.

Just for a moment the girl looked directly at Mary and beamed a smile from ear to ear.  Caught up in the moment Mary instantly made eye contact and smiled back.  The little girl could not stand still.  She would giggle as she hopped back and forth between mother and father.   Apparently she had been told who she was visiting, and maybe for the first and final time in her life she would meet the older sister she had never known.  Mary could see the excitement build as the little girl came closer to the door.  Once inside, the door closed, but the visit was brief.  The mother was pushed out of the room by the father and the little girl pulled out by the arm.  She kept looking back the whole time with eyes that Mary saw as crushing disappointment.  They stepped into the elevator and as mysteriously as they had come, they left.  The memory, on an occasional night, haunted Mary.  But the cold and calculated act started the path that gave Mary the strength to uplift the status of the patients from an embarrassment to a life worth living.

 The schedule had been fixed some time ago.  This night it would be the first six rooms closest to the nurse’s station.  The first three rooms on either side of the stark hallway were unlocked and propped open one at time. She took a glance at each of her friends to make sure they had not yet broken out of the drug induced sleep.  Each was still lying motionless in a coma-like stupor.  As it had been the routine, Mary tended to the other friends while the six minds, deprived of a fresh infusion of repressive drugs, revived and entered into a state of consciousness.

The medication cart rolled smoothly over the cold marble floor as it was pushed from room to room.  Mary unlocked William’s door and stepped inside.  All the bags of various chemical solutions were nearly full and bled into the body through the strategically placed catheters held securely in place by tape.

Mary injected the dose of tranquilizers into one of the bags as she stared at him.  He was just one of many of her friends that were plagued with voices disturbing the mind that, if conscious, would keep them in a constant state of mental agony—that is what she remembered the doctors telling her.

For those like William, she did not mind so much administering the medication as an escape from the cruel and unrelenting voices screaming in their minds, yet she lowered the doses enough for them to experience a little bit of the world for six of the nigh.  Hopefully, they would be able dream. Mary saw that they too received one night a week to come alive and experience the reality about them, but had to be vigilant and patient.  Without warning the voices could send her friends into an emotional frenzy.  In such circumstances Mary would talk to them, remind them that they were not alone and never were.

Further down the hallway Mary entered Rosa’s room.  She was just one of many of her friends that were severely malformed and made it difficult to even sit without muscles aching and cramping.  Mary spent most of the night running between their rooms flexing and massaging the limbs they could not control while staring into reflective eyes that cried out when there was too much pain or seeing the smile in approval of the tender touch.  Mary spent a lot of time comforting not only with tender touches, but with warm and loving words that let them know that no matter what, they were special and beautiful children.

As Mary pushed the cart back to the nurse’s station she passed some empty rooms that once held friends whose bodies simply gave up a fight that was never a choice, and passed each of her friends that still remained.  A frustration brewed inside her heart.  Ideally, she always had the hope that the parents would see the way of their error and come to rescue their child from a life of nothingness, a life void of the parent’s love, but she realized that was just a dream.  She came to know that while it was the parent’s choice to abandon their child, there was a lacking in the heart that stopped her from providing a full escape from the nightmare the patients lived.

As much as she desired to end the darkness for all her friends, revive them all each night, every night, a lack of inner strength and patience failed to accommodate each and every one of her friends’ needs at the same time.  She could clearly see these deficiencies, but how to go about improving them remained elusive.  She could only hope that what she was doing on a nightly basis provided some pleasure for her friends, however, being true to the failings of the heart, she realized the hope only masked the failure.

After she finished jotting down the observations and conditions of each individual friend, it was now time to visit the six special guests for the night.  The three friends to the left of the nurses’ station were Ricardo, Manuel, and Jennifer.  Each was a young adult that had been abandoned to the basement well before she arrived.  Ricardo and Jennifer, each with the mind of a young child, were friends and liked to play board games even though they could never grip the full rules and procedures of the games they played.  But nonetheless, they played and talked and laughed and argued even though they did not have the mental capacity to understand.

Manuel was different.  Mary had tried to find a friend for him, but he was quiet even in a full state of consciousness.  She tried engaging him in conversation but found it laboring.  She tried bringing in a radio and would play different types of music, but none appealed to Manuel.  When she switched over to video, more specifically, cartoon videos.  Manuel found his pleasure.

To the right of the station were Valerie, Ignacio, and Paul.  Like Ricardo, Manuel, and Jennifer, each suffered from a neurological disorder that prevented the brain from forming in a healthy manner and created an insurmountable disorder in the brain.

Ignacio and Paul were much like Manuel than Valerie.  They at times would interact with each other, but mostly they enjoyed the cartoon videos in the privacy of their room.

Valerie, however, was quite different.  She occupied the room closest to the station and sparkled with joy and a smile to match when she was alert.  She had a heart that was filled with love and a natural affection that could melt the coldest of hearts.

Mary, after the unofficial family visit, had taken to Valerie immediately.  Valerie had simple pleasures that reached far beyond a not so apparent simple mind.  All Mary had to do was to let her she talk.  Most of the other friends could not match her enthusiasm because of physical, mental, or emotional restraints, but Valerie loved to just sit and chat.   They would often talk about real life.  However, Mary would sugarcoat all the details to protect Valerie from the sour reality that would crush the fragile innocence inside.  She treated Valerie with such motherly love.  When Valerie would occasionally grow weary of conversation, Mary read fairy tales and fables to her friend, brushed her long blonde hair, and added a bit of makeup to transform Valerie from a disappointing servant into a beautiful fairy princess.

With all her other friends set for the night, Mary strolled into Valerie’s room with a smile.  “Well hello my precious little princess.  What do you feel like doing tonight?”

Valerie looked up and smiled.  She wrapped her arms around Mary and said, “Read.”

Mary knew exactly what she meant and was a little surprised by the choice.  Nonetheless, her wishes would be granted.  Mary had long realized there was no particular story Valerie wanted to hear, she just wanted to hear any number of the stories that had been read countless times.  Mary no longer needed the book to read from.  She knew each story by heart yet for appearance purposes kept an open copy in her hand.

“You get to be a beautiful princess tonight,” said Mary.  She smiled, “Oh my, what a lucky little girl you are.”

For hours Mary comforted her friend with tale after tale of enchanted lands and magical characters.  There were the triumphant victories of good over evil, and of knights rescuing the damsel from castle lofts by overcoming dark and deep waters sitting silent in a moat to save the fair princess from the evil intentions of the maniacal king.

After awhile Mary needed to live up to her obligations to the other friends and left Valerie with a few books for her to gaze at the idyllic illustrations.   Behind the station, tucked away in a locked cabinet, Mary retrieved a number of snacks for her friends.  She had convinced the hospital director at the beginning of the assignment that sometimes at night a patient would overcome the medication and vault into consciousness.  Instead of administering an additional dose of tranquilizers, she had suggested, and had been granted a steady supply of snacks which she would use to