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Merry
Christmas, Mrs. Moring
By
Henry Hurt ©
(Originally
published in Reader's Digest,
December 1995)
Danny
Moring had settled down to watch the eleven o'clock news in the den
of his quiet home in Charleston, S.C. His children were tucked in
bed. His wife, Allyson, who had complained of a bad case of the flu,
was asleep at the other end of the house. Her illness was so
severe--fever, chills, cramps, vomiting--that she had isolated
herself so she would not pass along the bug to the rest of the family.
Suddenly
Danny heard an odd scuffling noise in the kitchen. He went to look.
There lay Allyson, curled on the floor in a fetal position. She had
pulled herself all the way from their bedroom and now reached toward
him, her face distorted in pain. "Danny, help me. I'm
dying," she gasped, her teeth chattering. "I really am."
Her
husband was stunned. Allyson, 36, had enjoyed wonderful health--excepting
recent surgery for a ruptured spinal disc. Only the day before, she,
Danny and their children--Elizabeth, nine, and Robert, one--had
returned home from a Thanksgiving-weekend camping trip.
Danny
looked down at Allyson; the skin on her fingers and toes was turning
purple. He carried her back to their bedroom and called 911. Then he
stroked the wet, dark hair plastered to her face and hugged her icy
body to him. "I've never hurt like this," Allyson
whimpered. "It's like pins sticking me all over."
Minutes
later, when the emergency crew arrived, Allyson's blood pressure was
undetectable. She was placed on a gurney and carried from the house.
Standing in the doorway as the ambulance sped off into the night,
Danny felt weak. Of all people, how could this be happening to Allyson?
Danny
phoned his father to come stay with the children, who were sound
asleep. In his mind he could see them, snuggled in bed, innocent to
the fact that the very heart of their lives had been plucked out and
taken away.
Lit
by a Smile... "Stick your tongues way out," Allyson Moring
had said to her teen-age students at choral practice a few days
before she fell ill. "Let's do our warm-ups." Then, Mrs.
Moring, as her pupils called her, exuberantly jutted her own tongue
out and led the vocalizing. Awful guttural noises, mixed with nervous
giggles, resounded through the music room.
"Now
we're ready!" Mrs. Moring said, convinced that nasal cavities
were opened, voice ranges extended--and, perhaps most important, egos
leveled by laughter. Her gaze swept the 50 youthful faces, and she
hooked her arms into the air. She gave a crisp flick of her hands,
and young voices rose in sweet unison. With her high spirits and
smiling slate-blue eyes, Mrs. Moring had won over the hearts of her
charges at Bishop England High School. They loved to watch her drive
into the parking lot, her head bobbing energetically as she filled
the car with her own rendition of "I Could Have Danced All
Night." Even at her most intense moments of conducting, her face
was lit by a half-smile.
Since
her earliest days, Allyson, oldest of five girls in a family of six
children, had loved music. From the age of five, she had taken piano
lessons--and later voice lessons. As a teacher, she believed that
music could change lives for the better--that it could foster
emotional development and enhance all the good aspects of life, the
serious as well as the frivolous. She believed, too, that it could
soothe those parts of life that are most difficult. In every sense,
Allyson Moring was an apostle for the power of music.
For
the 1994 Christmas concert Mrs. Moring's group was attempting one of
music's most difficult choral pieces, the "Hallelujah"
chorus from Handel's Messiah. A challenge even for adults, the
selection would be the centerpiece of the concert--if the students
could get it right. The very first note had to explode from 50
throats in perfect harmony. Then the parts had to follow one another
in a cascade of sound--new voices breaking in upon old with exquisite precision.
For
16 long weeks, the boys and girls had practiced after school,
perfecting simpler selections and struggling with Handel's
masterpiece. During Mrs. Moring's absence for back surgery, Katherine
Allen, 17, a senior who had taken a course in directing music, filled
in. But Katherine, slight of build with long blond hair, had found it
hard to manage the large group. Believing she had failed as a
conductor, she vowed she would stick to singing and leave directing
to others.
Allyson
Moring returned to choir practice, the success of her surgery marred
only by a staph infection, for which she was given antibiotics. She
finished the medication on Thanksgiving Saturday. Within hours, she
had taken to bed with what she believed to be flu.
Last
Rites... When Danny Moring reached the hospital, the news was
brutally bad.
Medicine's
oldest enemy--massive systemic infection, also known as sepsis--had
laid siege to his wife's body. She had gone into septic shock, in
which bacteria overwhelm the body's systems, blood vessels begin to
leak, and vital organs start shutting down. A doctor took Danny aside
and suggested he gather the family. There was little chance that
Allyson would survive the night.
Gripped
by this grim diagnosis, Danny rushed home. There, he sat on the edge
of Elizabeth's bed, kissed her lightly on the forehead and nudged the
little girl from her sleep.
"Where's
Mom?" Elizabeth asked. Her eyes were beseeching now, confused,
and Danny caught the color in them--the precise slate-blue of Allyson's.
"Mom
went to the hospital," Danny said, tears welling in his eyes.
"Is
Mommy going to die?" she said, her voice wavering.
"Lizzie,"
he said, "she could die, but we're going to ask God to be with
us and we're going to pray and pray like we've never prayed before."
Elizabeth
burst into tears as the two of them hugged each other. They prayed
together, Elizabeth's small voice begging God to make her mother
well. Then Danny tucked her in. With the light now off, Elizabeth
cried in her pillow until sleep brought her peace.
Back
at the hospital, among the doctors watching over Allyson was her
father, pediatrician Allen Harrell. As her mother and sisters stood
around her bed, Danny and Dr. Harrell each took one of Allyson's
hands. The Morings' parish priest, Father Timothy Watters, stood by.
Allyson
Moring's eyes opened for a moment. She looked around at her family
and at Father Watters. Her father gently said to her, "Allyson,
honey, you're very sick. It would give us all strength if Father
Watters gave you the last rites." He rubbed her icy hand.
"Am
I going to die?" Allyson asked.
"Honey,"
her father said, gently squeezing her hand, "this is to give us
the strength we need to go forward."
Tears
welled in Allyson's eyes, and she closed them. Then the priest
touched his fingers to the palms of Allyson's hands and to her
forehead, anointing her with oil.
Katherine
Allen made her way through the bustling corridor as classes changed
at Bishop England High School. Suddenly she was face to face with
Jessica Boulware, a junior from the choral group. Katherine could
tell from Jessica's expression that something was terribly wrong.
"It's
not true," said Katherine after hearing the news. "There's
no way Mrs. Moring could be that sick."
"I'm
serious," said Jessica. "She's been given the last
rites." Speechless, the girls stared at each other, feeling
empty and alone. Would Mrs. Moring really die? What would happen to
the Christmas concert?
The
next afternoon, the choral group met to talk about Mrs. Moring. The
latest medical reports were dire. It would be almost impossible to
stage the Christmas concert, only ten days away. But, more important,
what could they do--now--for Mrs. Moring?
Jessica
Boulware had an idea.
Joyful
Voices... Allyson Moring's infection raged on. At first, in her
delirium, she had mumbled about the Christmas concert, telling Danny
it had to go on. Then she became totally unresponsive, and was kept
alive only by a respirator. Her body swelled so horribly with toxic
fluids that her eyes disappeared into bloated flesh.
Danny
was standing vigil at her bedside when two of Allyson's colleagues
from Bishop England, Barbara and John McPherson, came to the
intensive-care unit and handed Danny an audio cassette. "From
Allyson's students," Barbara said. Danny inserted the tape into
a small player and turned it on. In a sudden burst, the joyful voices
of girls and boys singing Christmas carols filled the cubicle.
Staring
into Allyson's face, Danny prayed that she could hear these voices
that he knew she loved. Then his own heart jumped as he picked up the
high, sweet refrain of one of her favorite songs: "Do you hear
what I hear? Do you hear what I hear?"
As
Danny prayed for God to let Allyson hear, the singers suddenly began
the "Hallelujah" chorus. What happened next astounded him.
Allyson's eyelids twitched, and he felt a firm squeeze from her hand.
Staring into Allyson's face, he thought he saw a tiny half-smile, as
thrilling as any smile he had ever seen.
Danny
Moring wept with relief and knew that he would play the tape over
and over. Then someone touched him on the shoulder. It was Allyson's
father. "Danny," Dr. Harrell said gently, "I cannot
let you get your hopes up. Allyson can't survive without a miracle."
But
there was no miracle. Pneumonia set in a few days later, and the
illness grew worse.
"The
tape made Mrs. Moring smile!" whooped a girl when Katherine
came into the music room the next day. That spark of hope ignited the
students. "There's no way we can not have the concert,"
said Jessica. But who would conduct? All eyes were on Katherine
Allen. "Never," said Katherine. "I'm not capable of
it." But efforts to find a substitute director failed. One
night, Katherine and her mother talked until 1 a.m. Over and over,
Katherine insisted, "I'm just not a conductor." But she
couldn't stop thinking about Mrs. Moring. She remembered the powerful
inspiration the teacher brought to their choral group--and the
immense satisfaction they felt when she pushed them to their
performing limits. The next morning, Katherine announced to her
parents, "I've decided to do it." Practice resumed. As a
perfectionist, Katherine wrestled with the pitch, the pacing, the
soloists. But the greatest challenge was keeping the singers together
for the "Hallelujah" chorus. "I can't get the altos to
hold their parts," Katherine told her parents in frustration.
"I just don't see how it can all work." Her sleep was
ravaged by nightmares of her own failure--something as a top student
she had rarely experienced.
The
rehearsals were also clouded by bad news from the hospital. At each
grim report, someone would break down crying. Katherine was filled
with fear.
"This
is for Mrs. Moring."On December 8, Charleston's magnificent
Grace Episcopal Church opened its doors for the Bishop England
Christmas concert. Word had spread about the students who were
determined to fulfill their teacher's dream. More than 500 people
packed the seats and spilled into the foyer.
In
another part of the church, Katherine and the chorus went over the
difficult parts one last time. Finally, Katherine called for silence.
"We are going to pray together for Mrs. Moring," she said.
"And then we're going to go out there and make her proud."
As she led the group in the Lord's Prayer, Katherine heard sobs. She
struggled for composure herself. Then she addressed them for the last
time. "We cannot be emotional," she insisted. "It'll
ruin the concert. Keep saying 'This is for Mrs. Moring, this is for
Mrs. Moring.' It must be the best we've ever done."
In
the darkened sanctuary of the Gothic church, the chorus, holding
candles and singing "O Holy Night," made its way down the
aisles. When the singers reached the front, the lights came up.
Katherine could see Mrs. Moring's family in the front rows, their
faces shining with the same hope the singers felt.
Steadying
herself, she looked out over the crowd and informed them that their
director was deathly ill. "We dedicate this concert to Mrs.
Moring in the hope that she will get well," she said.
Then
Katherine turned and, with great flair, began the performance. As
the voices intoned the familiar Christmas hymns, her confidence rose.
But one thought continued to nag her: Can I keep them together for
the finale? When the powerful opening to the "Hallelujah"
chorus burst from the organ, Katherine took a deep breath and raised
her arms. There was an excruciating pause. Then she flung her arms
wide--and heard the voices explode, every note in place, warm and
confident. Mrs. Moring's students were summoning sounds so pure that
Handel's long crescendo of "hallelujahs" seemed to soar to
the rafters, touching ears and hearts with the sound of heaven itself.
When
silence finally fell, the listeners rose and broke into applause,
some weeping and others crowding forward to embrace the singers.
Exhausted, Katherine felt a hug at her waist. It was the Morings'
daughter, Elizabeth, embracing her as tightly as she could. Looking
into the child's slate-blue eyes, Katherine was overcome with joy.
That
same night, less than a mile from the church, Danny Moring sat
holding his wife's hand, the tape made by her students still playing.
Allyson's condition remained hopeless. Danny didn't even know whether
the news of the successful Christmas concert had penetrated her unconsciousness.
But
slowly, remarkably, over the next few days, her systems began to
stabilize. Lungs and kidneys started functioning. Allyson began to recover.
Faith
in God's Power... On Christmas morning, just 17 days after the
concert, Allyson sat quietly in her own living room. Baby Robert
squirmed in her lap as Danny and Elizabeth fetched presents from
beneath the tree. Allyson was bone thin and exhausted, but her face
wore a radiant smile.
Why
she got well, or even when the precise turning point came, is not
important to Allyson Moring. The key fact is that her long, tortured
slumber was filled with music. "What I remember is music, music, music--the
beautiful music and voices that I love."
Soon
after Mrs. Moring got home, Katherine Allen and Jessica Boulware and
several others from the choral group tapped gingerly on her door,
bearing gifts and flowers. There was an explosion of emotion as the
girls and Mrs. Moring hugged one another. She told the girls what she
had told so many--that the entire experience has certified her faith
in God's power through music and prayer and the wonderful capacity of
young people.
If
the most precious of God's gifts is life, the Morings have realized
a blessing every bit as special to them as Allyson's recovery--a baby
boy born to them in October 1995, named Jonathon Tucker. Merry
Christmas, Mrs. Moring.
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