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Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.
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One year later—The beginning of the end
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IN NINE HOURS, MY HUSBAND will be dead. I deserve it. It’s not like I’m any different than Rebecca’s husband. My kids aren’t different than hers either. Hell, Abraham went to school with Finn. I should have known. He’ll be dead and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. There is no God. Rancher’s oblivious, going about his day the best he can—house slippers on, paper open, shaking violently in his wheelchair with tremors he doesn’t notice. His tremors make me, on the other hand, jump, especially at night. He can’t even read. I think he simply likes the smell of the newsprint. It’s familiar to him from the days not so long ago when he read that stupid Shopper—always on the lookout for vegan festivals as places we could market the sanctuary. I wish I could crawl inside his head and hear his thoughts.
Instead, I’m stuck with mine. Does he care? Does he really understand what’s going on? After more than half our lives together, you’d think he’d know that I like—no, need—to talk things out. Am I supposed to just give him this one? Let him do things his way on his final day? What about the sanctuary? Would this have happened if I hadn’t taken him off animal meat? Am I supposed to act as if this is okay?
Yes, I suppose I am.
I press my lips together and beg myself to be strong enough to handle what’s to come.
Stop. The man can’t talk anyway. What’s he supposed to say, even if he could?
This isn’t about me. It’s about him. It’s his story, for now.
This whole thing reminds me of the time we took Abraham’s first dog Samson to the vet to be put down. At only five years old, Samson had developed a rare and untreatable eye cancer. In six months’ time, he went from a bouncy pup to a whimpering old boy, frail and delicate with the same big heart but much less of an appetite for Caesar’s Kitchen treats. We didn’t let him suffer, or we told ourselves that. We kept him drugged up until we could see his quality of life wasn’t worth keeping him around for our own selfish need to hang on. Samson was the best dog: agreeable, friendly, happy.
We rode in the cab of my husband’s tired pick-up to the vet that day. Rancher couldn’t even look at Samson. I couldn’t let go. I hugged him and tried force-feeding him pieces of a raw hotdog I’d snagged from the fridge on my way out the door. That dog looked at me, one eye puffy and swollen shut, as if to say “not a chance, lady.” He couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t want to believe it. His tail was wagging, telling me he was content to go along for the ride. I remember wanting to scream at him and Rancher. I wanted to tell my husband I wasn’t strong enough, demand he pull a U-turn and take Samson right on home to the ranch. I wanted to say, “He’s really not suffering that much. Let him stay with us a little longer: Die at home. In bed. Happy.” I said nothing.
I wanted to tell Samson this would be his last ride. “Stupid dog, this isn’t an ordinary ride! Eat the damn hotdog! It will make me feel better.” I know, selfish.
Rancher said nothing either. Even when he carried Samson’s body, wrapped in his favorite quilt from our bed, to the backyard, by the heifers’ barn, leaving his loyal friend only to find a shovel. Samson’s been buried in our backyard under our favorite cypress tree for eight years now; two months before the routine physical that changed everything. At least they’ll be together again. No one can tell me animals don’t have souls. I can’t imagine how he’d handle losing Rancher. They were best friends. Where Rancher went, Samson was sure to follow, always with a wagging tail and good intentions.
My husband? Not so much. He isn’t like either of us, Samson or me. He isn’t agreeable and he is even less selfish. No, my husband is a breed all his own. It would take me all day to find a word to properly describe him, but I’m not wasting our last hours together doing that. I’ll follow his lead, like I did the day we put Samson down, and pretend that everything will work out okay. Like when he taught me how to help with the ranch, I’ll be his silent partner. There will be plenty of time, the rest of my life, for tears and regret and telling the story, the other side of it, later.
I grip his shaking hand, look him in the eyes, and ask him what he’d like for breakfast—twice. I wonder if anyone else would understand his garbled response, not that it matters now. I hardly miss the grin that used to worm itself across his lips to thank me. It’s been months since that’s been around, and it’s hard to miss what you no longer expect. I rub his head, tossing a handful of coffee-colored hair, and get up from the tiny table in our dreary motel room. I need to focus on the mission at hand—making my husband his last real meal. Trying not to dwell, I am extra careful, skimming the pulp out of the orange juice and grabbing the biggest spoon to feed him. Lord willing, he won’t fight me. He does that, especially lately.
We’ve been here, on the West Coast, for six months now. You have to establish residency before you can move forward with the, well, the other stuff. I needed an excuse to get out. The Barneys were sniffing around and this is what he wanted—to die in the most humane way possible. He had no interest in hospice or any kind of “comfort care.” Rancher wanted to take his life, and death, into his hands and insisted it be that way. For me, it was convenient in that it got me off that property and away from prying questions.
Currently, Oregon is the only state where this type of medically assisted suicide is legal. The Death with Dignity Act was signed in 1997. Two years and a few acquaintances later, and it still doesn’t feel right. Aurora, Oregon is not our home. I can’t wait to get out of here and back to Texas. The fact is, we never really fit in here. As hard as we tried, it was clear to everyone in our tiny new town that we were here for the same reasons as so many dignity pilgrims before, to get residency and get out: Me in the pick-up, Rancher in a hearse. It’s the agreed upon plan, the one we decided on during a long car ride before he lost his...”pride.”
Pride. That’s the word he used. I’d call it “fight.” Doctors would write either term off as the “natural progression of the disease.” They’d go about their day, writing on clipboards and asking what the special was in the hospital cafeteria for lunch. I would know. I’ve heard it more times than I can count.
I’m not sure what it will be like returning south without him. I’m thankful that the boys got their own rooms. Soon, they will be knocking on the doo,r and Rancher and I won’t have much more alone time. It’s funny. I’m the one who always insisted upon having the kids around as much as possible. Now, as the man I tried so hard to save faces his final hours, I have never wanted to be alone with him more.
For better or worse, right? Honestly, now, I still can’t fully imagine him as anything other than my hardy rancher turned sanctuary keeper, out in the yard building an animal shelter from trees he milled himself. Although it’s been a long time since I’ve taken in that sight, it feels like yesterday. It’s how I see him and probably always will, even now, on the day he’ll die as I flip pages in a paper he can’t read. I mourn him now.
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