Walt stood slowly from the kitchen table and wandered away when John’s anger hit its peak. He thought the old man had walked to another part of the house merely to let the tension subside, but when he didn’t return John followed. He found Walt standing alone in a dusty bedroom, empty aside from a hospital bed and walls adorned with images of the Bolgers’ Catholic faith.
“Within days of your father’s stroke and continuing all the way to your reunion with him yesterday, I have known that to most eyes he appears dead in all ways other than the air in his lungs and the blood in his veins,” Walt said solemnly. “To be a life not worth saving.”
John stood among the portentous religious imagery and immediately sensed where this was leading.
“‘Sanctity of life’ is a phrase that has become such a charged expression over the years,” Walt continued. “I know for people like you, who don’t hold to the word of God, it’s within your capacity to decide which lives don’t measure up. Don’t quite deserve a chance, especially if they’re just going to be in the way.”
John’s temples began to throb. The air in the room turned icy as it grew thin.
“My wife and I, we didn’t live that way. We truly had no expectation that your father would hang on more than a few weeks, maybe a few months. But the path for your father was never ours to choose.
“If it was God’s will to keep Larry alive, then it was our duty to minister to him. No matter the sacrifice,” he said stoically, gesturing to the empty bed. “This was his home. For twenty years.”
John’s mind roiled as he stared at the bed.
“Terri Schiavo lived for fifteen years in your father’s condition,” Walt said. “If her family had had their way, she could still be alive, knowing the care they would have provided her. If the patient is fed and hydrated, if disease and infection are treated effectively, if their environment is kept as sterile as possible, a human life is a very resilient thing.
“But their care is unrelenting, often without insurance. Few loved ones can be expected to take on such a burden. Marie and I accepted the task as a blessing, and as a test of our faith.”
John went to a window and stared out, his thoughts overwhelmed. Terri Schiavo had hung on for years, that was one of the surreal elements of the story. That happened.
“I still had my practice,” the old man continued, “so it was on Marie to set Larry up here and tend to him. Changing his feeding supply, repositioning him to avoid bedsores, keeping him clean and sanitary—it’s all simpler than you’d think, but it’s constant. And she committed herself to him, a hundred percent.
“She loved that man, John. If nothing else, I hope you’ll believe that. She gave him such tender care, I really think you would have been touched by that.”
John turned away from the window. Brutal truths continued to pummel his comprehension of all this.
“Your wife and my mother had been best friends,” John whispered bitterly. “My mother was across town, and the two of you said nothing.
“She thinks her husband is dead!” John hissed.
Walt joined John at the window. “Son,” he began softly, “the moment I committed to this, the moment I lied to your family about your father, I put myself at terrible risk—legally, professionally. Morally. And the longer it dragged on, the more I had to lose.
“I don’t expect you to give a damn about any of this, but that’s where I found myself,” Walt said plainly. “Marie and I pulled back from your mother—we pulled back from pretty much the whole town—so that there wouldn’t be a risk of being found out. That’s how much we believed in what we were doing.”
The old man sighed.
“Then Marie died. May 2004,” he said quietly. “That left just me and Larry. For maybe a year I tried to take it all on myself, but it damned near killed me.
“So for a good while I brought in hospice nurses. They were young, fresh out of nursing school; I told them Larry was my brother. They weren’t going to question old doc Bolger.
“But as it dragged on, the agency started asking questions. I was surprised they let it go as long as they did.
“But the time finally came when Larry couldn’t live here anymore.”
The old man heaved a weary sigh.
“That was the closest I came to letting him die. God had given me this test, and it looked like I was finally going to fail,” he said. “But then came this.”
He had the Schiavo file again.
He reminded John that 2005 brought the closing chapter in the Schiavo firestorm. The Bolgers, virtually trapped in their home to hide Larry’s presence, had spent the previous six years monitoring the endless fight over Terri Schiavo’s life. They drew strength and validation from the faithful who filled their TV screen all day and night, forcefully sharing their belief that even the most stilled life was a gift from God. Marie Bolger died praying that that poor girl down in Florida would be spared by being delivered to her family’s care.
But a year after Walt lost his wife, no further legal challenges could prevent Terri Schiavo’s husband from ending her life. The faithful—including George Bush and the social conservatives in Congress who had outdone themselves with sanctimony and indignation—were outraged when Schiavo finally died in the spring of 2005, fifteen years after the stroke that silenced her.
“Not even the pope could stop it,” Walt said, putting on his glasses to read.
“‘Even our brothers and sisters who find themselves in the clinical condition of a “vegetative state” retain their human dignity in all its fullness,’” the old man read meaningfully from the newspaper account of the pope’s official declaration. “‘The loving gaze of God the Father continues to fall upon them, acknowledging them as his sons and daughters, especially in need of help.’”
He lowered his bifocals and trained his gaze on John.
He shook the newspaper article dramatically. “This was the burning bush, and it was talking to me.”
John said nothing, because there was no debating faith this deep.
“I had shown weakness, I was about to give up, but then I heard that my mission was not through,” he declared. “For Larry, and for the sacrifice that my wife had made, I was charged with finding a way forward. And by this point, I figured whatever I came up with, God was going to see it through.”