Saturday, November 18, 2023
A couple of days of deep grief – or I was sick. Today, I got my answer. The death of a child, a friend of one of my students, triggered my grief and released my tears. I’ve only cried like that three times since Mike died. I wish it was easier for me to let go. I felt so much better for the cry.
The child who died was ten years old. He tied one end of a string around his neck and the other end around the top post of a bunk bed and jumped. I thought suicide first. But I’m told this is considered a challenge: how long can you hold your breath. His nine-year-old brother found him. He was rushed to the hospital. He was brain-dead and put on life support until all his organs found a home. His organs were harvested yesterday.
The available hospital staff lined the halls as the boy was wheeled in from surgery. There wasn’t a dry eye in his house. I can’t imagine how the parents felt watching him wheeled to his certain death by their decree. It was hard for me to make the decision to let my seventy-eight-year-old husband go when I knew there was no choice other than to warehouse him forever on life support. All hospitals have folks kept alive for years on life support for years. Their families won’t let them go. I would never have done that to Mike. It was still scary to have the power to remove life support and send someone to their death. Can you imagine having to do that as a parent of a ten-year-old? The agony must be unbearable.
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