A Different Kind of Normal (30 page)

Authors: Cathy Lamb

How does one snap out of love, though?

Although he was excited at first to meet his Other Mother, the next days were an emotional roller coaster for Tate. He wanted to talk nightly after he came home from practice, then again after he practiced outside on our court. I think he finally took some time to examine the whole Brooke situation. Before she was abstract, never met her. Now, she was a reality and she was coming to our home.

He gravitated from excitement at meeting her, to anger and frustration for her being absent from his life, to relief that he knew she was safe, to hope that they could have a relationship, to disbelief that she’d abandoned him, to loss and sorrow, a bit of mourning of what could have been, to curiosity, and back to anger and excitement again.

“What kind of mother does drugs, especially when she’s pregnant?” He wiped his tears. “My mom. That’s the kind of woman that does it. I don’t get it.”

“She’s an addict, honey. They don’t think. The drugs have wrapped them up tight, taken their brains captive, poisoned them, stripped them of morals and ethics, taken away who they really are. Nothing gets through to them except their next hit.”

He nodded, his lips trembling. “Yeah. But still. She made a choice to stay on drugs . . . I don’t know. Even though she sounds so messed up and what she did to our whole family and me was wrong, I still want to see her. I don’t like what she did, and I love you, Boss Mom, but I still want to meet her. Talk to her.”

“I get it. She’s your biological mother.”

“It’s this screwed-up tie I have with her. I don’t even know why. I want to know who I came from. I want to see her. I want to ask her questions. I want to know why she did what she did and see if I feel anything for her. I’m living with space. Living with empty space, this weird mystery that you and Nana Bird get, but I don’t, and I need to get in that space and see it better because she’s the space.”

I groaned inwardly, and it was a shaky, troubled groan.

This meeting wouldn’t be easy. It would be emotional and unpredictable. Brooke was unpredictable.

I could be making an awful mistake by letting her in Tate’s life. I could be.

I hoped I wasn’t.

TATE’S AWESOME PIGSKIN BLOG

I do not have a date for Winter Formal.

It’s not as if ladies are bashing down my door. Who wants to go to a dance with a kid with a head the size of a spaceship? I get it. But the formal sounds fun. You can dance. You can eat. All the food is free. There’s some bubbly, sparkly stuff to drink. There’s cool music.

I don’t think I dance with any rhythm, no beats either, but I’m going to give it a shot. I can wiggle. Maybe that’s enough. I know I’m a better dancer than Milt and Anthony. Those two look like worms on hooks when they dance.

I probably look like a half lizard/half bouncing atom when I dance. So, if anyone wants to go with me, a half lizard/half bouncing atom dancer, to Winter Formal, please let me know.

I am looking for someone with these special qualities:

1.
Female.

2.
Not from outer space, although I will bend this rule if there are no antennae.

3.
A brain. Again, not a firm rule.

4.
Dressed. No naked dates. My Boss Mom would have a fit. Hey! I’ll take a naked date, but I would have to meet you at the school.

That’s it! If you want to be my date, let me know!

Here’s a photo of Albert Einstein’s lab.

Here’s a photo of Clara Barton helping people.

Here’s a photo of Itzhak Perlman playing his violin.

Here’s a photo of Bobby Fischer playing chess.

Here’s a photo of Madame Curie.

“I want to die.”

“I understand.”

“No, Jaden, I don’t think you do. I want to die now. Immediately. I don’t want to wait this out another six months. I don’t want to wait this out another month.”

I held the hand of one of my favorite patients ever, General Jerry Ross. General Ross is ninety years old. He is career military, starting in WWII. He landed at Normandy. He does not talk about it.

He stayed in the military for twenty-five years, married Mrs. Ross, and had five kids. He was bored being a retired military man so he bought a failing lumber company and built it back up. His daughter runs the company now. She had five kids, too.

Perhaps this story will best explain General Ross’s character.

Ten years ago, a young man with an impressively long rap sheet named Arrel Hood hit Mrs. Ross in the face with his fist, and ran off with her purse. Mrs. Ross was seventy-nine years old and had a cane. Mr. Hood later said he thought Mrs. Ross would be an “easy target,” because she was old and the guy next to her was even older.

That was a bad mistake. General Ross took off running after Arrel Hood, his legs pumping. He tackled Arrel to the ground, hit him in the face three times,
boom boom boom,
flipped him over, then used his own belt to tie the guy’s hands behind his back until the police arrived. Two men in their twenties told the police, “We ran over to help the old guy, but he was beating the crap out of the purse stealin’ guy and didn’t need help so we watched. It was awesome.”

In court, the young man admitted what he’d done. General Ross stood up, straight and tall, and barked out, “I demand an apology for my wife. Stand up, hoodlum, and apologize to my wife like a man.”

The judge told him to do it. Arrel stood up and mumbled something.

“Shoulders back, chin up, chest out,” General Ross ordered, drill sergeant–style. “Speak articulately! Speak!”

The young man tried again, General Ross interrupted.

“This is what you say, repeat after me and you’ll learn how to make an effective apology and you won’t sound like a stoned baboon! Mrs. Ross, I am an idiot. Say that!”

The defendant bent his head, then lifted it up when General Ross ordered him to. “Pull your head back up on your neck and do what I tell you to do!”

“Mrs. Ross,” Arrel said, embarrassed. “I am an idiot.”

This is the rest of what the young hoodlum was forced to repeat: “I stole your purse because I am lazy and don’t want to work, therefore I have no money of my own. I have a problem with marijuana and alcohol. I use both because I have no backbone. I am sorry that I hit you, Mrs. Ross. I am sorry I took your purse. I am sorry I scared you and gave you months of nightmares. That is no way to treat a lady. I am sorry that I am a coward. When I get out of jail, I’m going to quit being a weak, spineless, jellyfish loser. I’m going to get a job and be productive and pay taxes because I live in America and no one should be allowed to be deadweight, especially me, Arrel.”

Now and then General Ross would yell, “Shoulders back, chin up, chest out! Stand up! What are you made of, glue? What are you made of, rubber?”

It made front page news.

That’s General Ross. As he was quoted in the paper, “That young man needs the military! They’ll shape him up! They did me!”

I held General Ross’s hand as he rested in bed, wearing an adult diaper.

“Jaden, my lady, I’m ready to go and give God a hello.” He smiled at me, totally at peace.

“I think we need to talk about more pain control and—”

“Jaden.” His voice was raspy. “I am dying of bladder cancer, which has spread all over this ol’ boy. I am in a diaper, as you know. The other day I pissed myself and it ran down my leg. I am in terrible pain, which I can only control with a massive amount of drugs that make me dizzy, exhausted, incoherent, and nauseous.”

“We can try—”

“No, Jaden. You’re a dear lady, but we’re not
trying
anything else. We’ve tried it all. I can’t live like this anymore, peeing on myself, my bowels a mess, hurting all over, all day. It’s not a life. I need you to inject whiskey into me until I die a drunken, but happy death. Any chance you’ll help me?”

“Hmmm.” I tapped my forehead with a finger. “Let me think. I might. My ancestors had an innate love of whiskey. I can put it in your IV.”

“On a serious note”—he patted my hand, his eyes firm, somewhat sad, but resolute—“I want an assisted death.”

I was not surprised to hear this from him.

Assisted death is legal here in Oregon. It should not be called assisted suicide. Assisted suicide somehow implies that the person has a choice—to live or to die. An assisted death is radically different. The person is dying already and there is zero hope for recovery. Nada. No chance.

Assisted death helps a dying patient to leave earlier, on their own terms, with a shred of dignity still intact. Sometimes they are in torturous pain or enduring hellacious symptoms, like vomiting up fecal material or slowly suffocating. We hospice nurses and doctors do everything possible to help to alleviate this fallout.

In the end many people fear they will have no control over their withering bodies, their minds intact. There are stacks of rules and laws regulating it, doctors are involved, counselors, psychiatrists, etc. It is not as if a person who is terminal can decide one evening to cut out of life after watching their favorite cooking show and swallow something by the next commercial.

Some people hate that assisted death is legal; some staunchly defend it. And after all the outraged hoopla we’ve had here in Oregon, very, very few people actually do it. We control the pain and symptoms of the terminally ill, and they die naturally. The ones who do elect for an assisted death often share the same characteristics as General Ross: independent, educated, strong-willed.

“I want to cut out early and miss the rest of this,” General Ross said. “I don’t like good-byes. I don’t want to put my family through any more of this, either, but mostly I’m being selfish. I’ve got a diaper on my ass and someone wiping it. Stupid. This is exactly where I didn’t want to be. Yesterday two young nurses lifted my ass and gave it a cleaning, then put a diaper on and I messed it up five minutes later. God has a strange sense of humor, that’s clear.

“Yesterday I was in so much pain I had to get help getting off the can. I can’t walk anymore. I used to run strategy sessions, now I’m inhaling medicine like they’re peppermint candies and trying not to wet fart in my diaper. I can hardly breathe and I know this is gonna get worse. Do you want to experience air being slowly sucked out of your lungs while you flop around, a human fish on land?”

“No.”

“That’s what is happening to me. Can you help me?”

“No. As a hospice nurse, that isn’t my role. But you can talk to your doctor, your wife and kids, and they’ll handle it from there. You’re sure about this?”

“I’m perfectly sure. My life was my own business and my death is my own business, too. It’s not anyone else’s and I’ll do what I think is right for me, no interference, damn it.”

I squeezed General Ross’s hand, he squeezed back.

“I’ve had a blessed life, Jaden. I want to end it blessed, too. On my terms, not helpless and hopeless and riding out one humiliation after another as I decay further, a living corpse.”

“I understand.” I tried not to cry.

“I knew you would. So, let’s change the subject. Let’s talk about the craziest things you’ve ever done, Jaden. . . .”

We chatted about the craziest things we’d ever done and laughed and laughed. I leaned down to hug him before I left.

“I smell cinnamon on you, Jaden, as usual.”

“That’s because before I came to see you I ate eleven red cinnamon Gummi Bears and I smell nutmeg on you.”

It was our usual parting good-bye.

It would be our last good-bye.

Assisted death
is a newish sort of term.

It is not a newish sort of . . . concept.

It’s been going on since man began.