8. Spoiler: Death

I could barely understand her fifth husband, a schizophrenic, through his weeping when he called to tell me my mother died. “She fell…the ambulance came…they didn’t use the defibrulator! I kept yelling, use the defibrulator!”

“Where is she now?” I pictured a hospital room, a deathbed reconciliation. My mom and I were always at our best when one of us was in the hospital.

He keened, his voice high as a child’s. “They took her body…she’s gone. Joanie, my Joanie!”

My immediate thoughts, in order, and descending by chakra:

Oh, wow. (Head)

Oh, how awful. (Throat)

Oh, poor Joan. (Heart)

Oh, thank God. (Gut)

Thank you, Prime Mover and Ultimate Ender, for finally bringing her peace. Finally. After sixty-four years of psychic torture, there was mercy. She was out of pain. She was safe. Nothing would ever hurt her again. And I was free.

My entire being, my whole neural network, in every dimension, said yes. There was no shock or denial or struggle to accept it; her death made perfect sense.

I wrote every detail down in my head as it was happening, knowing that I would want to “use” it later—my knees pressed into the bristle of the carpet, my hair wet on my neck, wearing a towel from the shower I’d just taken. I was like a court stenographer, getting everything on the record. Experiencing the action with a short delay, like live subtitles.

But the only detail that matters from that moment is the relief. Because, when the worst happens, you can at least stop waiting for the worst to happen.

Listen, I’m not callous. I didn’t want her to die. I put terrific effort into her not-dying! And I failed! This was the opposite of what I wanted! This was everything I’d dreaded the most, the worst possible news.

I did not expect it to fill me with gratitude and peace.

Sorrow, sure. My poor mom. I loved her, after all. I’d just spoken to her days before, trying to arrange a get-together with her husband and mine. She hung up on me.

Eighteen hours earlier, I’d written in my notebook, “Spoke to my mom the other day, for what may well be the last time.”

I thought I was being dramatic.

*

Husband Five, between wails, was able to give me a few details.

• My mother got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom.
• She fell down, which woke him up.
• He tried to help her get up from the floor, but she was dizzy.
• He got her some juice, and she had a sip or two.
• Then she had a heart attack and died in his arms.

“But…you were there with her, [H5]!” I seized on this idea, a sliver of silver lining. My mother didn’t die alone, like she’d always feared; H5 was there! Hooray! Hooray for H5, finally doing the one goddamn thing he was hired for!

“I couldn’t save her!” he cried. “Oh, Joan, my Joanie!”

His anguish was intolerable. I rushed to counter it. “But you were there, [H5]! That’s such a blessing! It’s so important that you were there! She wasn’t alone, right? She didn’t go alone, you were right there, and she knew you were right there, bringing her juice, taking care of her. Right? That’s so important, [H5]! You comforted her in her last moments!”

Me, the atheist, nattering about blessings. Cooing my consolations to the man who caused this disaster. It’s like, the instant I heard my mother died, H5 slid into the empty spot of “mentally ill person I must protect, even though I want to kill them.”

“You were there for her!” I continued, babbling over his unbearable cries. “And that’s everything, [H5]! She knew you loved her, and you were there. And she went fast, in your arms! That’s exactly how she would have wanted to go! She didn’t die alone, [H5], she knew she had you to take care of her. What a gift that was to her, what a blessing!”

I was in my role now. H5 had fulfilled his role of The Person Who Was There So She Didn’t Die Alone, and I assumed mine: The Person Who Tries to Alleviate Suffering Through Creative Storytelling. I was on a roll in my role.

“And she’s spared the pain of losing you! Right? She doesn’t have to feel what you’re feeling right now! Because if you went first, and she was left alone…” I let the silence underline the profundity of this point. H5 hiccupped a few times, waiting.

“If she lost you, [H5], she wouldn’t have been able to bear it. So you’re taking the grief. And you’re sparing her from having to take it. It’s so much better for her this way! You’re taking the grief so she doesn’t have to!”

And there were trumpets. And H5 was a hero. And confetti fell onto the hoary heads of all the neglected mentally ill senior citizens lining the streets to salute him.

This would be the story. My mother’s death wasn’t a godforsaken clusterfuck; it was the best of all possible deaths. I could accept the sorrow of the past ten years, if I could tell myself this was a happy ending.

At least she died fast, and she wasn’t alone.