Compass North by Cathleen Ellis

Author:Cathleen Ellis [Ellis, Cathleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-02-16T06:00:00+00:00

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Tyrone, Annie, and Mandy stood with Tyann in the hotel lobby. The concierge took several pictures of the family, Tyann in her commencement gown.

Tyann hugged her sister.

“This’ll be you soon,” she smiled to Mandy.

“Yeah, we’ll see.”

“Uuummm, you’re a sophomore here at IU, not that long.”

The family came into a group hug.

“My girls, one day both college grads. could you ever believe it, Annie?”

Annie nodded her head to them, “God’s will, and our daughters, they’ve worked really hard, yes I believe.”

Tyann saw pictures in her mind, of the months of her internship at St. A’s. She tried to pay attention as the nursing students started lining up, getting ready for ceremony. Scenes rolled out of her head, athletes she assisted in orthopedics. They were her favorite patients. Time and again she repeated, “Up and at ‘em, you must walk, and I must stay by your side. We’ll keep doin’ this and soon after you get home you won’t even use your walker anymore. You’ll move to a cane, and you’ll be heavy duty into physical therapy. Those folks’ll take over. They’ll help you get back out on that field, or that track, or that court.”

As she sat down at the ceremony, babies’ faces came to her, the ones she helped take care of, mostly the tiny ones, in the neonatal unit at St. A’s. Most little ones made it, but once, while she was in that unit, a baby did not survive its very early arrival. Tyann knew that her job was to bring people seeking health care to being healthy.

“God’s will, not ours,” she always told herself as she turned her attention to the speaker on the stage above her.

As she walked back to her seat, diploma in hand, she looked out over the audience. She did not see her parents and sister in the mass of faces. But she thought she recognized one face, standing in the back of the great hall where nursing students graduated. She looked again, gave a wide smile and raised her hand a little to acknowledge that she saw him.

“Dear God, it is her, and I think she recognizes me.”

Conner asked the Hulfitz family to keep his coming to Tyann’s graduation a secret. And they did.

A cake and coffee/punch reception followed the morning ceremony in the hall. The Hulfitz family gathered around Tyann. They came together in a group hug after they found a quiet spot in a corner of the back of the hall. She watched him walk toward the family. What struck her, what she saw, was the light shining in his eyes.

“I love her,” his mind blasted out.

“I love him, oh I love him,” she whispered out.

They hugged, as he whispered to her, “Congratulations, I’m so proud of you, Tyann.”

“Thanks, Conner.”

They let go of their hug. Conner shook Tyrone’s hand, then hugged Annie and then Mandy.

“How, uh, how,” she stopped and shook her head, “did you do this?”

“Ah, Alabama’s not that far away, and my semester’s completed; I’m back home helping Doc Fletcher here in Porttown for the summer.

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