How it feels to choose to die.
EPILOGUE
Time had paused for me. Physics would say I've achieved the impossible, but really it was all about perception. I couldn't move, felt like the air in the room was a thick goo, oozing its way around my joints. Short, forced breaths of air, sharply bruising my dry throat.
It'd been exactly 43 minutes and 24 seconds since I got the call from the hospital.
I've always believed in god. Every morning I'd say a prayer. Every night I'd say a prayer. But there comes a point in life when you realise that you've been waiting for someone else to make things better for far too long. I'd spent 20 years praying devoutly. In those 20 years, my husband left me, and my two sons succumbed to illness.
ONE
The soft hum of the dialysis machine was all there was to comfort me. The dilemma clawed at me as the seemingly endless tears dripped from my eyes. A sharp intake of breath, and with shaking hands, I turned to face the nephrologist. I couldn't bring myself to say it, it would have been worse than murder to let one live and let the other die. A shiver made its way around my chest and down to my stomach. "T...take them both..." The nephrologist looked at me in alarm. "Surely, you want to live?", I could only shake my head at her, as a tear rolled of my cheek.
I did want to live.
But I didn't want to live if one of my children lay buried beneath the soil of a graveyard.
Whoever lived would hate me. Nobody wants to be the chosen one. Forever weighed down with the knowledge that you traded your life for someone else's demise.
It felt so surreal. Here I was, ready to put myself forward as the sacrificial lamb, the matyr.
Not really a dilemma to be frank. I didn't really have any other options.
TWO
Turns out its fairly rare for such a scenario to happen, and the paperwork was immense. Its been a few hours sitting between the beds of my sons and I'd spent every second of it filling up form after form. Setting up future savings accounts for them, arranging for them to be put into foster care together.
My throat was painfully swollen. My chest heaved and my tears blotted the ink of my biro. Some decisions are really a lot harder then others.
" You don't have an option B. "
Yeah, I didn't.
I double checked the will. My bank account, all $26,537 of it. All to the two of them.
It was time soon. I stacked the papers neatly and slotted them back into the brown paper envelope. Instead of licking the seal close, I gently dabbed my finger into my pool of tears on the tables and swiftly slicked it across the seal.
I pressed the envelope and fully sealed it.
THREE
I think its impossible to fully be prepared to die. Even if along the whole way you've felt depressed, when the moment comes to finally take it.
We hesitate.
We re-contemplate the entire plan.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to just save one.
Or I could save none.
I don't want to do this anymore.
Im convulsing.
Im shaking.
Im sweating.
Im scared.
Please.
I just want to tear up the documents I just signed.
Im scared.
Im terrified.
I can't do this.
Don't take my life.
It's not too late to change my mind is it?
FOUR
My eyelids, gently the doctor closes them.
Last chance to change my mind.
I'd never wanted to do something that terrified me so much.
But I had too.
The two of them had their whole lives ahead of them.
I only had maybe 15 more years in me before I ended up on a hospital bed dying of disease.
An entourage of emotions laced with fear traversed her mind.
But nothing could change her mind.
She took a whiff of oxygen through her nose, feeling the acrid hospital air sting her nostrils.
She held that breath as the doctor pressed a stringe into her arm, slightly above the elbow.
And that breath slowly escaped her lips as she felt a cold, calming, delightful liquid flow into her arm, seeping into her veins and vessels, consuming her whole body.
FIVE
" Rest in peace a loving mother, who gave her own life to save two. May the lord forever bless her soul. "
The two brothers looked at each sadly as their fingers traced long scars on their abdomens.
Gently they brushed away the rotten remains of flowers and placed fresh tulips on the stone.
In unison they kneeled and kissed the cold hard stone.
In a year they would be back.
Fresh flowers.
Kisses.
And silent thanks for the gift she gave them.
The gift without a return receipt.
The gift that couldn't be exchanged.
