Tears in the Mara

By Amy Hufnal

Tears in the Mara – a sequel to the author’s 5th book “Nightshade Can Be Deadly”, finds Emma and Jim pursuing their dreams of opening a clinic in the Maasai Mara. A dream filled with love, heartache and ultimate grace.
Amy Hufnal, the author has traveled many times to Kenya, working with Kenyan students at different schools throughout the Mara area. Her Kenyan sons Kenneth and Immanuel continue to be the joy of her heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665515559

Amy Hufnal

Amy Hufnal is in her 41 year of teaching and has traveled extensively in Kenya, Costa Rica and Peru volunteering with students around the world. This is her 7th Children's book and the proceeds of this book will go to help stop human trafficking in Kenya. She currently teaches 5 subjects at a high school and enjoys every moment. Writing books is one of her passions.

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© 2021 Amy Hufnal. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/10/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-1556-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-1555-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021901863

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Glossary

To my mom and dad whose love for the

Kenyan children they worked with

will remain in their hearts always

and

to my dearest friend Sammy Muriithi.

You are and always have

been a blessing from God.

Mungu Awe Nawe

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CHAPTER 1

Wanting to arrive early at the hospital after a long Labor Day weekend, Emma knew she would need to follow up on the work that had been done by her nurses while she was away. As a supervisor for the 5th floor now, her workload had increased by quite a bit because she was in charge of five nurses and the lab techs as well.

After laying her purse on the table in her office, she closed the door and walked over to her desk. Picking up the pen that had belonged to her father, she touched it to her heart. She missed him so much. A photo of him in his favorite fishing hat was prominently displayed on the wall nearest her desk so she could see it at all times. Another photo, although a bit smaller, was also very visible. It was on her desk next to her in/out basket. It was of Aunt Nora and her, taken when Emma and Jim were married. She couldn’t believe it had been a year already since Aunt Nora had died.

So many changes; some wonderful, like her marriage to Jim and the trip to Kenya, but also the heartache of the loss of her loving father and Aunt Nora, etched in her mind forever. As Emma took a seat at her modest desk and gazed at the photo of Aunt Nora in her beautiful chiffon dress, the phone rang. Emma picked it up. Hello she said in a soft voice. Oh hi hon, I’ve got good news. Hi Jim, I was just looking at the photo of Aunt Nora. I miss her a lot. I know you do Jim said, paused and then continued. Do you remember the endowment we were promised for the clinic in Kenya? Well, Scott wants to meet with us this evening to go over the details. I know its short notice but I told him we were available. Hope that’s ok. He seems very eager to get this process going. Do you think we can meet with him?

Of course, said Emma. I will make sure I finish all of my paperwork this morning so I can make my rounds this afternoon. That will bring me home before six. Great. I will meet you there and we’ll drive to the church together. He said he will be there at 7:00 p.m. Sounds good. See you then. I love you. Love you too, hon. Jim exclaimed in his wonderfully uplifting way.

She hung up the phone and opened the first file on her desk. It was Mr. Conn’s file. Hmmmm, let’s see – how is your diabetes regimen coming along. Levels look a bit low. Who saw you this weekend? she said aloud. Emma flipped to the last page. It was nurse Langston. She set the file down and put her chin on her fist. Nurse Langston was an interesting person to say the least. Very hot and cold as it were. Some days she would make conversations with everyone – other days she would just about bite the head off anyone she came in contact with. Strange personality. She was 28 years old, give or take a month and had a peculiar twist in her nose. She was an avid skier and one day on the slopes she turned sharply to avoid another skier and crashed into a tree – breaking her nose and her left wrist. To this day she still has pain in her wrist but that did not deter her from wanting to be a nurse.

She received very high marks in her college classes and even her professors, (who had trouble understanding her mood swings) gave her the highest of recommendations.

Another interesting peculiarity about her was that she had several colorful tattoos on both of her upper arms – only visible when she changed into her scrubs. The hospital had strict rules about body tattoos – they were to be fully covered at all times when working on the floor and most certainly with patients.

As Emma scanned the rest of the report, she noticed that Mr. Conn’s levels had dropped considerably on Friday evening. Nurse Langston had not indicated that he was given anything to bring his levels back up. That part of the report had been left blank. Emma picked up the phone and dialed the nurse’s station. Hi, this is Nurse Sanders. Could you please have nurse Langston come to my office? I would like to speak with her. The receptionist told Emma that she would page her immediately.

As Emma waited, she picked up another of the patient files and glanced through it. Looking at her clock above the door, she wondered why Nurse Langston had not yet appeared at her office.

She phoned the receptionist and enquired if she could be paged again. I’m sorry but I don’t know why she did not respond. Perhaps she stepped out for a moment. I will page her again.

Thanks much Emma said, totally expecting that this time, the page would work.

After waiting an additional 15 minutes, Emma got up, put her white lab coat on and walked out of her office. She made her way down the corridor and as she did, she passed the hospitals bloodwork lab where she saw Lynn and Jerry working diligently on processing the samples her nurses had taken from two of the cancer patients on her floor. Emma really enjoyed both of them. Lynn – a 40 something took her job very seriously. She was substantially built, with blond hair and colorful half glasses that matched an equally colorful chain that hung around her neck. Her hobbies included crocheting baby blankets for single moms and selling her home grown, organic tomatoes at the local farmers market on Saturdays. She prided herself in growing her tomatoes without even a smidge of pesticides. Every fall she would bring a large yellow fiesta bowl filled to the brim with tomatoes. She would place them at the nurse’s station and exclaim You’d better eat these – I’m not taking them home AND there are no pesticides on any of them – SO EAT UP!

Those tomatoes were, without a doubt, the best tomatoes Emma had ever tasted. Lynn’s mother, who had passed away from cancer at an early age – perhaps that’s why Lynn chose the field of medicine she did – was, even up to her death, very active in their church – baking goodies every Saturday to share