Thirteen Weeks

April 15, 2005

Today marks 13 weeks since your (Ashley’s) death. Every Friday I think about it, but it becomes less clear with each passing week. Most times I don’t even want to think about it. I have trouble remembering the details of that day, of your moaning, of your breathing become less and less regular, of calling an ambulance, knowing that you never wanted to be in a hospital again, of administering CPR and then watching the paramedics take over while a flat line registered across the screen. I had to carry your dog Zoë down the wooden steps and then, with her head pressed up underneath my chin in my arms and her back rigid against my chest, because you know how much she hates to be picked up and carried, I let the police officers in and directed them where to go. The police were called in as soon as I alerted the dispatcher that you had stopped breathing. Apparently that’s the protocol. Zoë didn’t want me to put her out. She wanted to be near you and all of the action. Your dog was loyal to you to the end. She sat outside on her leash with her back facing the house and her head facing into the wind, visibly upset and annoyed that she was relegated to the yard. I rushed around the house grabbing things I thought I might need. I grabbed mom and dad’s contact information for where they were staying in London. I grabbed my backpack and my water bottle. I went back upstairs and called Zach at the library to tell him that you had stopped breathing and that I had called an ambulance and would be at Lancaster General with you. I told him Zoë was outback, Tyler was outside, and Noelle was in the basement, because I assumed he would get back to the house before me. I hung up and forgot where I put down the phone. I turned off the TV. The Ellen Show was still on. Lastly I turned off your oxygen machine, because you didn’t need it anymore. I stopped and watched you lie there on the floor so still as the paramedics intubated you and injected things into your pick line. You were perfectly still. I turned away, not wanting to see them handling your body like that. My vision became hazy as my eyes filled with the tears I wouldn’t let fall. I wanted to scream out “NO!”, but I couldn’t, and I thought that you wouldn’t like it if I had. I realized later that the heartbeat I felt and thought had been yours was really my own; it was my own heart racing and pulsating through the fingers that held your wrist. I rode to the hospital with a police officer who asked me to write down our names and our relationship to each other. He also wanted to know what had happened. He asked about the scars on your stomach and if you had a terminal illness. He wanted to know if you had taken an overdose as an act of mercy. I told him no, that whatever it was you had was in no way terminal, and that that wasn’t the case at all.

The ride to the hospital was long. I was silent and so was he. There was country music playing, which was periodically interrupted by his radio alerting us of robberies and other unlawful things taking place. The tears filled my eyes again, but I didn’t want to think about why. I wanted to remain strong. I didn’t ask any questions, because I didn’t want to hear anything that I wasn’t prepared for. Thirteen weeks ago at this time you were still alive. It’s 12:30 in the afternoon now. That day, January 14th, in three more hours you would take some of your last breaths. They pronounced you dead at 4:47 p.m. at the hospital. They say you stopped breathing and that they couldn’t re-start your heart in the ambulance. I know it was before you left the house that afternoon. You never wanted to be in a hospital again and you never were. The last words you said to me were “Thank you”, after I took off your socks, which you had asked me to do. I don’t know if you knew what was happening or not. It happened so quickly. I’m not sure I really knew, but even if I did, I didn’t admit it to myself. This kind of thing doesn’t just happen to anyone, so why would it happen to us? I have so many mixed-up feelings about it.

Last night I was reading through some of an old notebook I found in your room, and I was simultaneously touched and angered by what I read. There were several letters in it written about four years ago to some friends and to me. They were written in German. In the two letters to your friends you talked about how much you missed having me around for the summer. I had been on the Cape with Zach all summer and had only spent a few days at home. You talked with pride about me going to graduate school at Penn State and me teaching there and then you talked about how much you couldn’t stand Zach and his ill manners. I remember those times. They were really stressful for me, because I was trying to balance school, my family and being in a long-distance relationship with Zach that no one, except Alyssa, seemed to approve of. I remember not really wanting to talk to you much then, because I could sense your disapproval. I know mom and dad had similar feelings. Reading those letters brought back those stressful, hurtful times. I felt like I had to choose between Zach and my family. Somehow over the next few years things quieted down. I’ll never know how much you thought about me and Zach and if or when your thoughts ever really changed. I guess it doesn’t really matter, but, believe it or not, your opinion mattered to me. There will always be answers to questions that I will never know. I can only try to fill-in-the-blanks myself. I’m sure Zach really did irritate you, as a matter of fact, I know he did, but I also wonder if part of your dislike for Zach was feeling like I was being taken away from you. I resent your disapproval toward my relationship with Zach, even though I think you genuinely warmed up to him over the past two years, but I would much rather have you here, knowing that you disapproved of my marriage than not have you here at all. I could learn to accept that and all the other things in my life you didn’t agree with, but accepting your never-ending absence from my life is so painful that it’s beyond comprehension, beyond words, and beyond feeling. The physical pain your death left me with is pretty much gone, but now there’s some invisible, abstract scar left behind that I can’t see or pinpoint. It makes my head spin, and nothing makes sense. I know I’ll die one day, too, but somehow I also fear that I will never die. I wish we could all die together and I wish that I could be in control of when and how I die. It’s the uncertainty, the elusiveness of death that scares me.