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An October Morning
by Fran Moreland Johns

The thought of dying didn’t bother Mary Evelyn in the least. It was all those peripheral issues: the crippling osteoporosis, the near-blindness, the heart failure that had left her almost immobilized, the constant pain, and the frustration that no symptom ever got better.

“Everything’s gone except my mind, and now, that’s going too.” It was a grim joke. Not long ago, Mary Evelyn admitted that dementia was creeping in. As the winner of several poetry awards, she found her frequent struggles to remember simple words quite embarrassing.

Mary Evelyn was a small, wiry woman of 84. Her eyes, once the color of the Connecticut sky, had grown cloudy and discouraged.

It was fall in her native New England, the time of year when she had always loved to hike in the woods and watch the migrating birds, to breathe the sharp, shuddering, enlivening air.

Four years earlier, Mary Evelyn had buried her husband of more than half a century. They had lived a robust life together, sometimes contentious but never dull. Their lives were mostly joyful until his last six years, which had been sheer hell. Felled by a major stroke, Walter had lived in debilitating exile beside her, a sudden stranger, captive in a shrinking, non-functioning body.

Mary Evelyn swore she never wanted to die that way. “No long goodbyes for me.”

When her daughter Roberta tried to argue with her, she’d say, “I mean it. When enough is enough, I want to be able to say so.”

Now that time had come. Although Roberta had moved in to be a full-time caregiver, Mary Evelyn said she no longer wanted to be cared for. Instead, she wanted closure for a life she saw as slowly but inexorably slipping away.

Mary Evelyn asked several people about possible help and then one told her about an organization that helps people as they near the end of their lives. They sent over Joan, who talked to Mary Evelyn about her wish to die. But Joan’s response was, “I don’t know, Mary Evelyn. You look okay to me.”

“Well, I’m not okay,” Mary Evelyn snapped. “I’m in constant pain unless I take all these pills that keep me groggy. What I have now is not life, not life as I know it.”

“I’m a nurse. Perhaps I can help by seeing if you can get better pain medications.”

“No, I’ve tried everything. I want you to find a doctor who can help me--”

Joan’s look was intense. “Physician-assistance to hasten dying is not legal in our state. But I can tell you about another option.”

Joan described voluntary refusal of food and fluid.

Mary Evelyn sat up straight in her chair. “Call Roberta in here. I want you to tell her exactly what you’ve just told me.”

Roberta joined them, surprised to learn what was on the meeting’s agenda.

Joan said, “It’s simple: just stop eating and drinking. Put Vaseline or one of those fancier creams on your lips, and let a few ice chips melt in your mouth from time to time, and your body will shut down. I’ll make arrangements for you to get on hospice, since once you refuse all food and drink, you will clearly meet their entry criteria because you will be expected to die within six-months.”

“Will she have to go there, to hospice?” asked Roberta.

“No, they’ll provide care in your home.”

Joan called Mary Evelyn’s physician so he could talk to Mary Evelyn and meet the hospice nurse at the same time.

“Have we done everything we can?” the physician asked Mary Evelyn. One question seemed for himself: “Am I wrong to allow this, because I can’t make you better? Should I try harder to get you to change your mind?”

Mary Evelyn remained steadfast.

Roberta agonized, “Are you doing this just because you don’t want to be a burden? Like Dad was? Haven’t I convinced you that I want you here because I love you? Are you saying the only way I can show you that I truly love you is to let you go?”

Joan wasn’t sure. “Every dying person is different. I know the available options, but I’m never sure what’s best.”

Two days later, Mary Evelyn gathered her family and close friends to tell them of her decision to refuse all food and drink. They agreed to support her, including forbidding any intervention unless she changed her mind.

It was a time of gentleness, order and calm, perhaps because Mary Evelyn seemed so totally determined. Although she was constantly offered food and water, she only accepted ice chips, but not many.

Three days later, Joan dropped by for a visit, pleased to find Mary Evelyn smiling and serene, her speech clear and focused. Her face, which had been twisted with anguish before, now seemed calm and peaceful. She lay in the hospital bed the hospice team had brought in. It was turned toward her living room window so she could see the leaves turning gold outside. As Joan joined her looking out, soaring formations of birds were flying south, rising on the chill winds that swept down from the mountains.

After another five days, Joan visited again. Mary Evelyn was surrounded by the people she loved best. Roberta sat in a straight-back chair beside the bed, holding her mother’s hand.

When Mary Evelyn asked for her favorite flavor of ice cream, vanilla fudge, hope seemed to rise in the room along with the question, Perhaps she would change her mind?

“How delicious,” she said. But she took only half a teaspoonful. “I just wanted a taste.” Then she smiled and said, “I feel better than I have in a long time.”

The next day she fell into a coma.

The following week, on a brilliant October morning, they buried Mary Evelyn on a tree-shaded hillside, near the mountains trails Walter and she had taken their grandchildren, to explore. .