Boreal

FAREWELL POSTINGS

Dying Happy

November 28, 2024

In September, after having a late supper in front of the television, I got up and felt a stabbing pain in my chest with every beat of my heart. This is it thought, and let myself fall back on the couch, stretched out my legs, crossed my arms over my chest and tried to maintain what I hoped would be a lasting serene facial expression, not unlike Lucette’s death mask, and said to myself “let it rip!”

No such luck. Once back on the couch, the pain went away to be replaced by a dull sensation. After about half an hour with nothing new to report, I got up, put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, brushed my teeth and went to bed.

I don’t understand the attraction of dying a natural death surrounded by family. Unlike a medically assisted death, like that of my Lucette where they first put you into a deep sleep before the lethal injections are administered about five minutes later, it’s usually not a pretty sight.

That expression of being in a deep, pleasant and undisturbed sleep never left Lucette’s face except for her eyes flashing open just before her passing was confirmed by the attending physician. He said that this happens sometimes, after making a futile attempt to close her eyes. He then made a call and handed me the phone. It was the coroner offering her condolences and asking if I was satisfied with how my wife’s assisted death had been carried out.

After I handed it back, he left with his nurse leaving me alone with my partner of 38 years on the bed, propped up by pillows, staring into the distance as if mesmerized by some spectacle. It felt so real that the first words out of my mouth were “are you okay?”

I called to have her body removed. Just before they arrived, I tried one last time to close her eyes. She had a favourite scarf with which I covered them when a knock on the door announced the arrival of the people from Beechwood cemetery.

The doctor, before performing the procedure that allowed my Lucette to die on her terms, asked her, “Madame, how do you feel?”

She replied, “Happy, very happy.”

"Madame," he said "would it surprise you to know that is the response I get from most of the patients for whom I perform this procedure?"

I hope to die nursing a tall glass of well-aged single malt scotch, and not while watching a porno, but in the company of a real woman—hope springs eternal—with whom I will have had dinner before inviting her to my place to test if sex and alcohol will do for me what assisted death did for my Lucette, die happy.