“Every tear someone else has shed,” I said, “is one I don’t have to cry.”
As Andy comforted Rick, my deepest fears were being confirmed. Ann would not recover. Previously I’d imagined an eye tucked under those bandages somewhere. Now I could only imagine red nothingness where her right eye, her “good” eye, used to be. This is the one she depended on because the other one was considered “lazy,” despite being strengthened through exercise over the years.
And that’s how I realized that—even if she survived—I’d never look into her beautiful, deep, chocolate-colored eyes, inherited from her Native American grandmother, ever again.
I understood Rick’s despair at not being able to do anything productive to make the situation better. “If there’s anything I can do,” our friends said at the end of most conversations, “please let me know.” People want to “do” for you in a time of crisis, and there was very little that could be done.
As I sat in the hospital, I tried to think of more practical ways for others to help. After all, I didn’t need another hundred pounds of cat litter. I didn’t know of it at the time, but there’s a Jewish tradition of bringing a hardboiled egg to a grieving friend or loved one. It’s supposed to symbolize eternal life, but there must be a certain amount of practicality involved as well. Giving a mourning person an egg gives them just the right amount of protein, exactly what they need when food is the last thing on their mind. In a similar vein I tried to accept nourishment from eager friends. Every morning, when the first person offered help, I’d ask them to get me a smoothie from the hospital food court—peaches and cream. I knew I wouldn’t eat unless someone put food in my hand, so those daily smoothies—which I’d nurse until lunchtime—helped a great deal. Some days, it was the only nourishment I had.
I visited with friends in the impromptu snack room until we were called to visit with the trauma surgeon. We left the little cocoon of family, love, and sandwiches to meet the cold harsh reality of Ann’s prognosis. I wasn’t sure how to feel, but I knew I wanted actual information. I didn’t want another confusing report, or the narrow view of a specialist. I wanted to know what we were dealing with.
We had to be “buzzed in” to the Neuro Intensive Care Unit. It was a large room with ten smaller rooms surrounding the nurses’ station in the center. Ann’s room was the first one on the right. The trauma surgeon smiled kindly as we walked up to the nurses’ station where she waited to speak to us.
“We’ve decreased Ann’s pain medications,” she said to us. “We’re hoping to see some sort of response.”
“And?” Andy asked. I detected it again, sitting right there below the surface. Hope.
“Nothing yet,” she said, “but there’s so little we know about the brain, you just never know. We’re going to continue evaluating her.”
The doctor spoke with the certainty that anything could happen. But Ann, completely unresponsive, didn’t seem like she was on the verge of a turnaround.
“With modern medicine,” she continued, “there’s a lot that can be done.”
I wanted to believe, and as she spoke I tried to conjure it. Miracles happen. The brain is mysterious. People are praying.
Should I believe? Should I hope?
“We’ll have to see,” she said. “I’ll keep you posted as we continue to monitor her response.”
When she left, I felt uneasy and unsettled, unable to wrap my mind around Ann’s true condition. I’d hoped the conversation would provide clarity, but I only felt uneasy.
Was it possible that she could survive a blow from a shotgun at almost point-blank range? Though Andy was willing to hope, I didn’t feel I could entertain the idea of her survival.
When the neurosurgeon came into the room later that day, the hopeful tone created by the trauma surgeon dissipated.
“Mr. and Mrs. Grosmaire,” he said as he walked in, immediately getting down to business. “Has anyone shown you the CAT scan?”
“No,” Andy said.
“Would you like to see it?”
“Certainly,” Andy said. “Visual things help me understand.”
He brought the CAT scan up on a computer monitor. The scan took data from several X-ray images of Ann’s head and converted them into pictures. They had taken an X-ray, moved down slightly, taken another X-ray, moved down slightly, and taken another. The resulting CAT scan was composed of probably twenty different images.
“Let’s start from here,” he said. The screen was blank, just dark, until we saw a little circle of grayish-white in the middle. “That’s the top of her skull.” Then, the second picture expanded a little bit and we saw a little bit more. At some point, as I was looking at it, I recognized that we were actually seeing Ann’s head. It was sort of like looking at a bread loaf, one slice of bread at a time.
“What are these?” I asked. I’d noticed two or three little sparks of light on the image. They weren’t just little round dots; they appeared to have little rays coming off of them as well. Almost like stars.
“Every point of light is a shotgun pellet,” he said.
I swallowed hard as the CAT scan moved down her head. In one image, there were three or four little pellets, but in the next there were ten, then fifteen, then more.
“There are so many,” Andy gasped. “It looks like a night sky.”
As the images went down her head, I realized a horrible fact that had been cloaked when the nurses had said to us, “Maybe you ought to step out of the room while we change her bandages.”
On the scan, I began to clearly see her left eye socket, the left side of her cheekbone, skull, jaw, and teeth. On the right side there was nothing but blackness. With a deep, horrifying jolt, I understood what the other doctor didn’t have the fortitude to tell us.
Not only was Ann’s eye missing. The whole side of Ann’s brain was gone.
The doctor rolled his finger down the mouse, and the images scrolled more quickly.
As the slides moved from one to the other, the pellets grew in density. The quick motion and appearance of the shiny, starlike pellets made it look like fireworks going off on the screen—which meant, of course, in Ann’s head.
“This will show you just how devastating your daughter’s injury is,” he said in an almost professorial manner. He pointed directly to a place where the pellets went into Ann’s head. “Here, you’ll see the point of entry. The trauma that the brain has endured is extensive. She has just minimal brain function.”
“So.” I gathered myself. “You’re saying the Ann we know and love has been lost?”
He paused, but only for a moment. The previous doctor seemed more concerned with sparing our feelings, but this one seemed intent on telling us the horrible truth. I scarcely can imagine how two professionals could deliver such different takes, all in the course of one afternoon. As much as I hated what he was saying, I appreciated his straightforwardness.
“She has brain stem function, and that’s about all,” he said. “She’ll continue to deteriorate.”
“Her brain,” I said, pointing to the CAT scan, barely able to formulate the question. “It should be here, right?”
“Correct,” he said. “But that’s not the only concern. The pellets going through her head certainly caused devastation. But the shock of the blast also destroyed the tissue in this part of her brain as well.”
I grabbed Andy’s hand, as the sensation of losing Ann—really losing all hope—made my soul plummet.
He continued, “Her organs will eventually shut down, and her body will continue to deteriorate to the point where even the ventilator won’t be able to sustain her.” He took his hand from the computer mouse and looked directly at us.
He delivered the various pieces of bad news with the regularity of a metronome, one piece after another, with just enough time between his sentences to make sure we understood.
Afterward, we shuffled though the halls. I couldn’t stop thinking about her organs shutting down. Would that mean that she’d e
ventually have a feeding tube? Would that be something we would want to do?
As I’ve mentioned, we’d been inundated with details of the famous Terri Schiavo case because she had also lived in Florida. The legal battle was heart-wrenching to watch, as courts eventually were forced to decide whether or not to honor Terri’s husband’s request to remove her feeding tube or Terri’s parents’ request to leave it in. Though many doctors and court-appointed physicians diagnosed her as being in a vegetative state, her parents (and the doctors they hired) didn’t believe it. Heartbreaking photos and videos of Terri were shown on the news for more than seven years, as they battled over her life. Politicians, churches, and families had heated conversations about the morality of “pulling the plug” on her life, or what was left of her life. The husband was described as greedy and selfish for wanting to move on with his life. The parents were criticized for being unrealistic. Ultimately, the tube was removed.
Our scenario was not like Terri Schiavo’s yet. No one was pressuring us to make a decision about a feeding tube. When it was mentioned, it was presented as a future possibility, something to consider in case it came up. But our conversation with the neurosurgeon made it seem like a certainty.
What would we decide? Would we suddenly be embroiled in a complicated moral situation? As we walked through the hall, various tidbits of Church doctrine bounded around in my head. Before this moment, I was sure I knew how the Church viewed such instances. We err on the side of life, but what if there’s no hope?
I didn’t have time to consider these issues as we walked, our footsteps echoing in the otherwise empty halls. When we got to the waiting room, all eyes went to us. Our family members, who had been chatting quietly at the table and eating from platters full of little sandwiches, froze when they saw the expressions on our faces.
“Things don’t look so good,” Andy said, standing at the head of the table.
He repeated everything the neurosurgeon had told us. As we spoke, we could see their eyes filling with tears. “But we want you to know that she’s not suffering. She never suffered.”
My son-in-law Scott openly started crying, and my sister Patti got up and hugged me.
“Does that mean . . .?” she asked. No one wanted to ask if death was imminent. Though I’d already gotten there in my head, I could see Andy was still torn. It was disorienting to receive such different reports from doctors in such a short amount of time, but the CAT scan didn’t lie. Half of Ann’s brain was gone; the other half had been injured from the blast.
I cut Patti off before she said the obvious. Ann was going to die, but I didn’t want to hear those words spoken. “We know where this road will lead us, but we don’t yet know how long it will take to get there.”
“Can we talk to you a minute?” I asked Father Chris Tuesday afternoon. He had a beard, which gave him more of an authoritative air than his three years of priesthood would otherwise garner. He followed Andy and me to the classroom we were using as a waiting room and pulled out a chair from the table that still held remnants from lunch—some plastic cups, a paper plate with sandwich crusts, and empty cans of soda.
“How can I help you?” he asked. He had a quiet and wise nature, which made you want to spill your secrets or ask for advice. Because he’d studied in Rome, we considered him a theological scholar.
“So,” I began, “we’ve been told that the Ann we know and love is gone.”
His face fell at the news, but he didn’t look away or interrupt us with words of comfort. He just listened as we relayed the prognosis from the neurosurgeon.
“We’ve been told Ann’s injuries are grave,” I explained. “One by one, her organs will fail, which means that eventually we’ll need to make some hard decisions.”
“God can work a miracle,” Andy said. “But at this point, it would take one to save Ann’s life.”
“We’re not asking what to do,” I said. “But it would be helpful to understand what the Church teaches on end-of-life matters.”
Because I’d been in church for so many years, I felt I had a pretty good understanding of this subject. But there was something about how suddenly this issue landed right in our laps that made me want to hear directly from a church authority.
Father Chris listened carefully and sympathetically as we spoke. Then, when he was sure that we had finished, he spoke words of comfort and love.
“First, I’m so sorry that you’re faced with such a decision,” he said. Even though he was young, he had the bearing of someone who’d ministered people through all types of painful situations.
“Second, the Church respects life, but not to the point where they believe you should keep someone alive at all costs.”
“What about a feeding tube?” Andy asked. “We’re not sure we want to do that, because it seems like it’s prolonging the inevitable.”
“The Church would not suggest you prolong someone’s life just because you medically can,” he said. “The Church doesn’t require you to keep life going under such a circumstance.” He explained that the Church allows people to follow their own consciences, but that it is helpful for our consciences to be informed by the Church’s beliefs on such matters. “You’re following the right path,” he said. “And you would be doing nothing contrary to the teachings of the Church.”
Father Chris didn’t make the decision for us, but he helped confirm our inclinations about the feeding tube. Though no one was directly asking us the question, we’d settled in our hearts that we didn’t want one.
In addition to the daily updates from Ann’s doctors, we continued to receive updates from the Leon County Sheriff’s detectives, Don and Dawn. Dawn had shared with us on Monday what Conor had revealed in his confession: that he and Ann had gone on a picnic to celebrate her making the dean’s list, but somehow they had started arguing. They argued all night until Conor fell asleep, then they continued the argument the next day when they woke up. When Ann left the house, Conor got out his father’s shotgun with the intention of killing himself, but Ann knocked on the door and he let her back in. He waved the gun around to frighten her, and when it was pointed at her, he pulled the trigger.
“So, Conor has pled not guilty to attempted murder,” Don told us on Tuesday.
Did I hear him correctly? It made no sense to us.
“Had he not already confessed?” I asked. “Why would he plead not guilty?”
“Ma’am, it’s just procedural. The defendant has to appear before a judge in a timely fashion. They had to charge him, and he had to plead not guilty. Now his lawyer can start his discovery.”
The words rang in my ears. Attempted murder? If Ann died, I realized, the “attempted” would be dropped.
“What if Conor didn’t want to be charged with murder? Could they do something about that?”
“What do you mean?” Don asked.
“I don’t know. On TV, they file an injunction or something to keep the victim alive so that the defendant won’t be charged with murder.”
“That never happens,” Don assured us. “I’ve never seen anything like that happen in real life. You have the right to make any decision you need to, and they can’t stop you.”
I should have known better than to believe an episode of a TV crime drama, but how could I have known what to expect? I hated being so ignorant of the legal aspects of what was happening, but I was grateful that the detectives took the time to explain things to us.
That evening I was sitting in Ann’s room when the nurse came in to tend to the ventilator.
“Did you know she’s breathing on her own at times?” she asked as she looked at the monitor.
“Really?”
“Yes, she’s really just on assisted breathing, see?” The nurse extended her finger and pointed at the screen. “This ensures she takes a deep enough breath. But if you watch this number, you can see she sometimes is breathing by herself.”
“Wow,” I said. “What does that mean?”
“She’s a fighter.
Sometimes she’ll get tired and ride the vent, which means she relies on the ventilator to breathe for her for a while,” she said. “But she’s fighting.”
Ann was a fighter. As devastating as the news concerning her injuries was, here was a little piece of positivity. She was giving us the time we needed to process everything. To allow everyone to see her one last time. My daughter was a fighter.
“Do you mind if I pray?” our friend Bob Schuchts asked Tuesday evening. Bob was a counselor involved in the healing ministry at church. He and Andy had crossed paths during one of the weekend retreats Andy attended fourteen years earlier. I got to know him through many interactions over the years. We could tell he was in shock at seeing Ann in the hospital bed, but mostly at seeing what we were living through.
The prayers of our community seemed to be lifting us up and protecting us from the depths to which we could’ve sunk.
“Please do,” Andy said, as we all bowed our heads.
“Wait,” I said, opening my eyes for a moment. “Will you pray for the McBrides too?”
“Conor’s parents?” he asked.
“And Conor,” I said, very deliberately. I hadn’t had time to really process all my feelings toward Conor or the McBrides. However, I knew our response to them needed to be right and full of grace.
“We’re getting so much love and attention from our friends and community, but they’ve lost a child this week too,” I said. “They’re not a part of a church body, so I don’t know if anyone is reaching out to them.”
Tragedies bring out the best and worst in us, and, as mentioned before, often people’s attempts to explain a horrifying event turn into accusations against the perpetrator’s parents. What kind of parents would raise a kid like that? They must’ve done something really wrong. How did his parents not see the types of magazines he read? Didn’t they notice he was gloomy? Didn’t they see the warning signs?
To help make sense of it, people have to establish rather quickly that there’s a significant difference between the way they’ve raised their families and the way a murderer was raised. It’s a reassuring myth.
Forgiving My Daughter's Killer Page 5