“Put a bullet in my head.”

Elizabeth
Elizabeth
Jul 25, 2017 · 3 min read

How could he ask me to do that?

It was the same plea that traumatized him so when it came from his dying wife, the same cry for relief that he brought up so many times over the past two years since her death — the reason he had to turn away from her in the end. He loved her. He didn’t want her to suffer. But he wasn’t going to kill her to end her suffering either.

“Just put the pillow over my face and wait.” She would say, “No one will know.”

Dot had been ill for years, decades actually. She had a degenerative disease that left her completely dependent on her husband — needing his assistance for everything from dressing in the morning, to bathroom help, to being fed — spoonful by careful spoonful — in the end. Ray was so used to taking care of her that when she finally passed, he was lost, not knowing how to care only for himself.

She begged him to end her life. To make it easier for both of them. To end the painfully slow progression into full incapacitation.

He loved her, but he wouldn’t. Because he loved her, he wouldn’t.

And he was torn up about it. He couldn’t do what she was asking, and he didn’t want to live a life without her in it, but he couldn’t face her begging him. So the last week, he stepped away from her. I stepped in.

She complained about my care. She said it wasn’t like Ray’s. That he was the only one who knew how to do things the right way. But the thing was, after so many years, Ray was tired. I was new to the caretaker game, but I understood both perspectives. Neither one was a happy one.

Ray has told me time and time again how much her request ate at him, how much he suffered from it. And yet, twice now he’s asked me for the very same “help.”

He’s 89 and suffers from COPD and other health issues which merely serve to make him miserable but which refuse to kill him. He’s outlived friends and loved ones, and the most exciting part of the day after the crossword, eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner, has been ruined by failing taste buds and nausea. The doctors keep prescribing medications which seem to merely eke out the suffering rather than relieve it.

I understand his request for assistance with death— I really do. But what am I going to do about it?

Nothing.

Except look for ways to make today a better day for him than yesterday. That’s all I can do. And if I need to take a break and walk away for a few minutes to gather my emotions, to come back stronger, I will. And that’s all I can do.

Elizabeth

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word lover, writer of incomplete stories, searcher, marketer, and nascent blogger

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