If I Stay

I try to meditate on the sound of Gran’s voice, to be carried away by her happy babble. Sometimes I can almost fall asleep while sitting on the bar stool at her kitchen counter and listening to her, and I wonder if I could do that here today. Sleep would be so welcome. A warm blanket of black to erase everything else. Sleep without dreams. I’ve heard people talk about the sleep of the dead. Is that what death would feel like? The nicest, warmest, heaviest never-ending nap? If that’s what it’s like, I wouldn’t mind. If that’s what dying is like, I wouldn’t mind that at all.

I jerk myself up, a panic destroying whatever calm listening to Gran had offered. I am still not entirely clear on the particulars here, but I do know that once I fully commit to going, I’ll go. But I’m not ready. Not yet. I don’t know why, but I’m not. And I’m a little scared that if I accidentally think, I wouldn’t mind an endless nap, it will happen and be irreversible, like the way my grandparents used to warn me that if I made a funny face as the clock struck noon, it would remain like that forever.

I wonder if every dying person gets to decide whether they stay or go. It seems unlikely. After all, this hospital is full of people having poisonous chemicals pumped into their veins or submitting to horrible operations all so they can stay, but some of them will die anyway.

Did Mom and Dad decide? It hardly seems like there would have been time for them to make such a momentous decision, and I can’t imagine them choosing to leave me behind. And what about Teddy? Did he want to go with Mom and Dad? Did he know that I was still here? Even if he did, I wouldn’t blame him for choosing to go without me. He’s little. He was probably scared. I suddenly picture him alone and frightened, and for the first time in my life, I hope that Gran is right about the angels. I pray they were all too busy comforting Teddy to worry about me.

Why can’t someone else decide this for me? Why can’t I get a death proxy? Or do what baseball teams do when it’s late in the game and they need a solid batter to bring the guys on base home? Can’t I have a pinch hitter to take me home?

Gran is gone. Willow is gone. The ICU is tranquil. I close my eyes. When I open them again, Gramps is there. He’s crying. He’s not making any noise, but tears are cascading down his cheeks, wetting his entire face. I’ve never seen anyone cry like this. Quiet but gushing, a faucet behind his eyes mysteriously turned on. The tears fall onto my blanket, onto my freshly combed hair. Plink. Plink. Plink.

Gramps doesn’t wipe his face or blow his nose. He just lets the tears fall where they may. And when the well of grief is momentarily dry, he steps forward and kisses me on the forehead. He looks like he’s about to leave, but then he doubles back to my bedside, bends so his face is level with my ear, and whispers into it.

“It’s okay,” he tells me. “If you want to go. Everyone wants you to stay. I want you to stay more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.” His voice cracks with emotion. He stops, clears his throat, takes a breath, and continues. “But that’s what I want and I could see why it might not be what you want. So I just wanted to tell you that I understand if you go. It’s okay if you have to leave us. It’s okay if you want to stop fighting.”

For the first time since I realized that Teddy was gone, too, I feel something unclench. I feel myself breathe. I know that Gramps can’t be that late-inning pinch hitter I’d hoped for. He won’t unplug my breathing tube or overdose me with morphine or anything like that. But this is the first time today that anyone has acknowledged what I have lost. I know that the social worker warned Gran and Gramps not to upset me, but Gramps’s recognition, and the permission he just offered me—it feels like a gift.

Gramps doesn’t leave me. He slumps back into the chair. It’s quiet now. So quiet that you can almost hear other people’s dreams. So quiet that you can almost hear me tell Gramps, “Thank you.”

When Mom had Teddy, Dad was still playing drums in the same band he’d been in since college. They’d released a couple of CDs; they’d gone on a tour every summer. The band was by no means big, but they had a following in the Northwest and in various college towns between here and Chicago. And, weirdly, they had a bunch of fans in Japan. The band was always getting letters from Japanese teenagers begging them to come play, and offering up their homes as crash pads. Dad was always saying that if they went, he’d take me and Mom. Mom and I even learned a few words of Japanese just in case. Konnichiwa. Arigatou. It never panned out, though.