Carver's Will

They were going to kill him.

Carver knew it, he knew without anyone speaking a word that he only had a few moments left to live. And this time last year, he would have enthusiastically proclaimed that this was exactly what he wanted. Actually, in all honesty, he did enthusiastically proclaim it, many times, to many, many people.

“I don’t ever want to live hooked up to machines, like a veg-e-table, y’know?” he’d said, cuffing his sons-in-law on the shoulders. “I mean, if I can’t hunt, can’t sleep with my wife, can’t even feed myself, then there isn’t much point. A life like that, it’s just…not a life.”

That’s what he’d said, “it’s just not a life.”

Of course, last year, he had imagined himself old, probably already senile, when he became paralyzed and reliant on a ventilator. He hadn’t wanted to be a burden to his kids so that he could prolong his life from 91 years to 93 years.

He wasn’t hit by a drunk driver at age 65, in his imagination. He wasn’t trapped inside a body which would no longer breathe reliably, or respond to stimuli, but was still capable of complex emotion, sensation, love. 4 x 4 is? 16. Yes, even still capable of performing basic math.

I’ve changed my mind, he tried to convey with his eyes, but even they wouldn’t obey his mental instructions to focus on any particular thing. He found himself directing his thoughts at the IV in his right hand. I’m in here.

Mercifully, his eyes shifted, so that in his periphery he could see the group assembled around his bed. His wife, Colleen, sobbed softly into her wrinkled hands, the tears wetting the plain gold band on her ring finger. They’d been married for 42 years.

“I know, Mama, it’s hard. It’s so hard,” Sabrina and Chelsea flanked their mother, hugging her from each side, speaking into her ears. “But it’s been three days, and you know, it’s what he wanted.”

NOT ANYMORE, Carver thought frantically, but his eyes refused, again, to cooperate and slid to look toward the ceiling.

“I know, I know,” he heard Colleen murmur back. “It just doesn’t make this any easier.”

He felt, rather than saw, his three oldest grandkids approach his bedside. They took his hands, rubbed his arms, and each said their own muffled goodbyes.

“We’ll miss you, Papa.”

“Yeah, we’ll miss you a lot.”

“I’m gonna try to always make you proud.”

Then they turned and retreated to their waiting fathers’ arms.

Knowing what was coming; Carver desperately wished he could compose himself. Couldn’t he summon the peace of mind to put his thoughts in order, say a mental goodbye? Be grateful for his family and the beautiful life he had with them?

Ah, but he realized, it did not work that way. He thought about how Bumper used to catch squirrels in the yard, and how he used to see the squirrels struggle, even when it was obvious there was no escape, even when escape would mean a drawn-out and much more painful eventual death. He was the squirrel. The primal, animalistic struggle for life was not deterred by his higher functioning brain, when it came right down to it.

Carver realized that when asked whether he wanted to see tomorrow, he would always say yes. Did he want to see his grandkids get one day older? Yes. Did he want to sit next to Colleen tomorrow and feel her hand on his knee? Yes. Did he want to sense the sun going down tonight and rising tomorrow, even if he couldn’t look directly at it? Yes.

He wanted to hear his daughters’ voices, even if they never spoke to him directly, even if he could no longer respond, even if he had to strain to make out the phrases over the shhthumpthumpthump of the ventilator.

He wanted to be parked in his wheelchair; face covered up like Bane, right in the middle of his eight grandkids as they shouted and ran and played all around him.

He wanted to lay on a set of crisp, freshly laundered sheets and fall asleep next to his wife again and again and again. It would never get old. He even wanted to taste the plastic of the tube in his mouth, even if it was the only thing he ever tasted again, because tasting something meant he existed.

Now Chelsea approached the bed, and Carver’s eyes slid from the ceiling to settle on her shoulders. It wasn’t the best view, but he could at least see her lips moving, her red lipstick a little smudged. She was so beautiful. It wasn’t fair. He wanted to see her grow up. Well, he thought to himself, I guess grow up more. Chelsea was right in the messy middle, at least that’s what she called it. 36 years old, with three kids, just trying to figure out life, buy a house, and learn how best to survive pre-teen friend drama, dyslexia and toddler tantrums. He had more he wanted to teach her, and, he suddenly appreciated, so much he still wanted to learn from her.

“I don’t want to do this, Daddy,” she was saying, rolling her lips over her teeth to stifle her emotion. Then don’t. Please don’t.

“But we all know, even if we don’t agree, that it’s what we have to do. Can you…” she hesitated, “understand?”

Sabrina stepped forward and put her arm around her sister. “He’s not in there,” she said, lovingly, but firm. She was always the more practical of the two, the more stalwart. Like himself, he’d thought.

With another pang of dread, he realized that this exact inherited trait would be his downfall. She had been a teenager, after all, when a friend-of-a-friend’s daughter had a diving accident and became severely brain damaged. Her parents were sure she was “in there” still, but Carver had expounded his own opinion to Sabrina many times.

“They see what they want to see,” he’d said. “She’s not in there; her brain is a pile of mush. It’s like Terri Schiavo, we need to let people go, we can’t just hold onto empty bodies forever.”

The parents had taken the girl home, and she required round-the-clock care. She didn’t respond to stimuli, communicate in any way or ever make any improvements. Carver wondered now, for the first time, what was actually going on in the girl’s head.

Carver made sure his daughter knew he never wanted to end up like that. And, he’d done more than just tell everyone he knew to “pull the plug.” He’d gone and put it into his living will.

His mind began shooting off random thoughts like fireworks, like the spastic final twitching of a man hanging from the gallows.

Will my death be quick? Or will it be drawn out and painful? What would I eat right now, if I could eat anything? An Oreo? Did I seriously just think about Oreos? What kind of last meal is that!? What kind of gravestone will they choose for me? Who was it that saw his own gravestone and wanted to scrub his name off of it? Oh, Scrooge. Because he was a different man than he used to be.”

The nurse moved out of his line of sight and over to Colleen. She had a Southern drawl, Carver thought she was Black but he never got a good look at her.

“Are we all ready now, sugar?” she said.

Colleen gulped.

Tell them no. Give me more time.

“Okay, then.”

The nurse advanced, he could hear her shoes squeak on the linoleum, though his eyes were still focused on a different patch of floor, on a tangle of wires and tubes. He wondered which tube was the one that delivered air to his lungs, and which delivered

hydration to his veins. They would all be obsolete soon.

He felt the nurse tug at the tape attaching the tube to his cheek. It stung as it pulled away, and he thought of the scene in all good bad guy movies when the duct tape is ripped roughly from the hostage’s mouth, and they are allowed, finally, to tell what they know. He tried his vocal chords. Nothing.

He heard Colleen sob harder, saw the shadows of the children as they trooped out of the room.

“It’s okay, Daddy,” Chelsea said, her voice quavering with emotion, “We’re all here.”

And so am I.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion.

“I can’t watch!” shrieked Colleen, and she threw herself face down over Carver’s soon-to-be carcass. He felt her anguish seep into the front of his hospital gown.

“It’s almost over now, Colleen, stay strong,” the nurse said. Carver wished that if his eyes wouldn’t cooperate, he could at least squeeze them closed. This was the scariest experience of his life. The scariest, and the last, he reminded himself. His eyes drooped to half mast, as if in expectation of eternal rest. Then, unbidden, they flew open and locked with Sabrina’s.

Her face changed from a mask of stoicism to an expression of surprise and confusion.

“Dad?”