Leave The City (Book 8 of Adopted by the Josephs)

36. Tyler

As we did every day, Jenna and I got up, dressed and toileted, got June and Rosie up and dressed and got into our rental car, ready to head to the hospital and sit with Samantha. We'd do Christmas with Junie and Rosie in Samantha's room. Brendon, Sarah, Zack, Kala, and our other LA area friends helped us decorate Sam's room and buy the kids some gifts.

Samantha had been surrounded by her friends, our friends, and people who loved and cared for her.

A couple of weeks ago, she showed signs of awareness. She responded to painful stimuli. But she hadn't shown much more awareness since then. We had no idea what, if anything, she could feel or hear, but we played music in her room at all times. And Rosie lay beside her every day and just talked into Sam's ear, telling her stories or telling her what she and Junie had done on the days that they went out with Brendon and Sarah, or Zack and Kala, or Pete and Meagan, or Josh and Debby, who'd flown out a couple of days after Samantha's accident when she had passed those critical days and we could begin to hope she could and would recover.

We got to the hospital around nine, parked the car, and walked the familiar path into the hospital and up to Samantha's room.

There was a commotion around Samantha's room when we got to her floor. Jenna and I looked at each other, grabbed Rosie and Junie, and ran to Samantha's room carrying the girls.  Nurses were running in and out; an alarm was blaring, and orders were being shouted. We panicked.

Zoe, Samantha's nurse, saw us and immediately came over.

"I know it looks bad, I promise you, it's not," she said, smiling. "Samantha's waking up. She opened her eyes, and she's fighting the ventilator. We're trying to calm her enough to get her off of it. Just give us a couple of minutes, okay? Then you can come in."

We nodded. We stared at each other.

"She?" Jenna asked.

"She's waking up?" I said, tears threatening. Could Sam really be waking up? Jenna and I were sobbing.

"Daddy? Why you and Mommy crying?" Rosie asked.  "Is happy."

"Mommy and Daddy are crying happy tears.  Sometimes, people get so happy, they cry, and it looks like they're sad because they're crying, but really, they're very, very happy."

"Oh," Rosie said as though that all made sense. I wasn't even sure I'd made any sense.

"Oh," Junie agreed. I smiled at my little girls.

Even from a coma, Samantha gave us the best Christmas gift we could have asked for.

Zoe indicated to us that we could go into Samantha's room. The first thing I noticed was the relative silence.  There was still the beeping of the heart monitors and the sound of air being forced through tubes, but consistently, not the measured breaths of a ventilator. I looked over at my daughter, lying on her bed, her head raised, an oxygen mask in place of the ventilator tube.

I ran to her side and took her face in my hands. I smiled at her as I looked into her blue eyes. I could see her spark. My Samantha was back.  I watched as her spark grew and her lips turned into a smile.

"Samantha!" I cried. I saw her lips moving. I moved the mask for just a second. "What? What was that, darling?"

"Hi, Dad," she whispered. I replaced her mask and kissed her forehead.

"Hi!" I cried.  "Oh, Samantha! Hi!"

"Sam, baby," Jenna cried on her other side. Samantha tried to turn her head. Jenna helped her ever so slightly. "Hi, baby! Oh, Sam. Oh. Your eyes. It is so good to see those eyes. And that smile."