All posts in people

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“You got the drunken letter home. I can hear him on the telephone.”

Somehow, it was inevitable, our friendship, like two shoals of ice, drifting helplessly on a certain collision course. I was young, dislocated and sad. You were half-cocked and clinically divided. We were both thirsty and so you took me to your bar.

I was impressionable and you poured your words into me. Three drinks in, teetering on my bar stool, Portishead on the jukebox, a cigarette dangling from my dry lower lip, I received your gospel, hung on your every postulation.

We held on to one another on those late night walks home. We couldn’t have made it any other way. Like two characters from a Bukowski short story; singing show tunes in a pizza parlor, soaked in booze and goodwill, turning out our pockets in hopes of finding enough left for a slice.

But you disappeared. Often. You weren’t just quirky, no. You were schizophrenic. For this, you needed medication. But there were months when the money ran dry. And there were months when your mind wandered elsewhere just long enough that you fell off the page. Your lights were all blazing, but you wouldn’t pick up the phone. I watched you from the street, pacing like a furious animal, holding your cat to your chest, smoking on the fire escape. I called to you. You finally looked down at me, but you could make no connection with my face. I felt that you were not there. I knew no one could bring you back in that state. So, I waited. There was nothing else for it.

You fell for a girl in your building. I say girl because she was just shy of twenty and yet she seemed to me to be pushing sixty. She was brash and bawdy, mouthy and coarse. Her language and mannerisms were aggressive to the point of being abusive. She immediately took a dislike to me, being the only other female with whom she felt she must share the stage. When I made the others laugh, she glared at me with heated malice, wishing me away, wishing me harm. It bothered me that you wanted her. It bothered me she knew it; took advantage of it. I wanted to protect you from the world and people like her were a big part of that. But you did what you wanted. You went your own way. It was something that I deeply understood.

And in much the same way that you blew into my world, you blew your way out. Without much of a warning, you were gone. Looking back, I probably could have seen traces of a goodbye in your hug, your wave at the door. It’s not anything I would have wanted to admit to myself which is why it would only register many years later.

The worst part of it for me has been the not knowing. The suspicion that you may have gone far away and taken your own life; that you may have just given up the constant wearying battle. That you did what you wanted. That you went your own way one last time.

Joel Nicholson – ‘Bobby’

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for many, many, many more tuesdays with tara, visit her archives.

“I get eaten by the rust you create and eat the dust.”

Whilst going through the usual morning motions today, I stumbled upon something that gave me pause. It was a link to a thread on reddit. A man, using the moniker lucidending, announced that he now had only fifty one hours to live. He has been suffering and deteriorating from cancer which, he felt, was robbing him of all dignity. He is a resident of the state of Oregon (where I am currently living) and has legally won the right to die today through the Death with Dignity Act. I had no idea that Oregon had a law like this on its books. It makes me even more proud to live here.

I was drawn into the thread by the seeming humility of this man. (“Who I was doesn’t matter. I’m in pain, I’m tired and I’m finally being granted a small shred of respect.”) He made no statements that could be construed as antagonistic. Though there will no doubt be those who will say that it is all a hoax, I feel that can only reveal a deep cynicism within those people. The man opened the thread with the intention of fielding questions that anyone might have about ending one’s life consciously. There was a lot of naked humanity in that thread. When asked how he felt, knowing that his death was imminent, he merely said that he hoped it wouldn’t hurt too much; naturally, he was afraid, and he felt sorry for those he would leave behind. I’ve given the subject enough thought to say that I would feel much the same, though who can know how much an inevitable reality might change those thoughts?

lucidending has had an eventful couple of days, according to the thread. People from all over the world stopped by to say hello/goodbye/aloha. People began posting pictures and videos of where they were so that he might feel he had been there. When he regretted never having seen the Northern Lights, a man from Iceland signed in to say that this was something that he witnessed so often, he took it for granted. And here was someone, on their death bed, who had always yearned to see it. It gave him pause.

And on and on went this chain reaction.

A young college student spoke of losing a loved one to cancer. He posted a quote from Socrates that he said helped get him through. It was one I couldn’t believe I’d never heard:

“To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise, for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them, but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?”

Many years ago, on an unassuming afternoon, something monumental happened to me. A very good friend of mine was terminally ill. Our friendship had been largely reduced to bedside visits. Though he was virtually staring death in the face each and every day, he always found the energy to be a delightful host. The stories he told and the way he made me laugh! I was so happy to have him in my life. And then one afternoon, he knocked the wind out of me.

Our conversation had taken a morbid turn. I suppose I knew this was an eventuality. He had recently increased his pain medication. His nurse, an implacable woman, grew largely quiet. He told me that the he was having trouble seeing the point of being around much longer. He was slowly decaying and falling apart. Did I have any idea what that felt like? I was a healthy twenty something, so of course, this question was nonsensical.

He asked me if I loved him. It went without saying, but I said it anyway. He asked me if I would help him, should the need arise.

He asked me if I would help him die.

I immediately burst into tears. Why was he asking me this, I had to know. He knew that I was an advocate of the right to die. He knew I was strong. He grossly overestimated me in this second point, evidently.

I left that afternoon with the heaviest heart imaginable. I told him that I would have to give the matter some thought. But what was there to think about? Of course I couldn’t do it. Aside from the fact that it would be considered a crime in the state where we lived, I knew I was physically incapable of such an act. I once had to conduct a mercy killing on a suffering chipmunk. I suffered the memory of that act for days on end, with a heaving bosom.

Today, when I read about lucidending, I couldn’t help remembering this friend of mine, and how he had been made to suffer until the bitter end. I wish he could have had the chance to make amends and say his goodbyes. I wish that he had been given the benefit of maintaining a semblance of dignity. He was robbed of all of those things in the end and it makes me angry to think of it.

By the time you read this, lucidending may be gone. May it occupy your thoughts for some length of time.

Deertick – ‘Christ Jesus’

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