The Valedictorian of Being Dead

by Heather B. Armstrong

  I was totally shaken, tired, exhausted—all of it. I had no one to pick up my kids, didn’t know how I was going to get them to school in the morning, didn’t know how I was going to get the car where it needed to go to get fixed. My mother attempted to calm me down and offered to drive over and pick up the girls. Suddenly a very specific and lonely feeling overcame me.

  “WHERE IS MY FATHER! WHERE IS MY DAD!”

  I was not asking questions. I was screaming declarations. The words shook the car.

  “WHY IS HE NOT HERE! WHERE IS MY FATHER!”

  I yelled this over and over, and my mother did not stop me. She just listened. When I finally stopped, she asked where I was.

  “I’m sitting in the car that will not start.”

  “Stay in the car and give me five minutes, okay? Five minutes. Just breathe. Can you do that? Do this for me. I will call you back in five minutes.”

  I agreed and sat in that driver’s seat slouched over the steering wheel, sobbing. My God, how much crying had I done? I felt so stupid and helpless and more than anything completely hopeless. Hopelessness consumed me, paralyzed me, rendered me useless. Everyone would be better off without me.

  Less than three minutes later my mother called me back.

  “Your father is leaving his house right now. He’ll be there as soon as he can, probably in less than a half hour. He is going to help you with your car.”

  “But I don’t—”

  “You don’t anything. Your father is coming. Period. End of discussion.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “You don’t want to know what I said to that man.” I could hear her anger.

  “About me?” I didn’t want my father to know how hysterical I was.

  “Not about you, no,” my mother assured me. “I said what I needed to say, I’ll put it that way. He will be there soon. Hang on until he gets there.”

  Twenty minutes later he and my stepmother pulled into my driveway. I have no idea how they got there so fast, given how far away they live and my father’s unwillingness to break any laws, ever. I’d had very little time to fix my face after crying. My mother must have said what she needed to say.

  We tried to jump the car with cables, but we failed over and over again. We assumed that because it was a hybrid, something could be wrong with any of the eleven computers inside the car’s system. Together we made a list of places to call, and I sat with my stepmother in my living room as my father called every place on that list to get a quote on a new battery, making sure he could find the cheapest one available. If it wasn’t the battery, we’d take it to the dealership and have them assess the problem.

  He’d shown up. My dad had finally shown up, and maybe that’s because I had finally given him the chance to show up. My God, what I would give to know what my mother said to him. She refused to tell me, except that she’d scared the living shit out of him. So I am just going to assume that it had to do with his pension and reminding him that she hadn’t asked for a single dime of it in their divorce.

  I did not know that my mother was taking notes during each treatment and keeping a journal of our time spent together. I had been jotting down notes of my own but had no idea she was doing the same. The day before she asked me to call my father she wrote the following entry in her notebook:

  Mom’s Personal Journal Page

  March 18th, 2017

  Three treatments this week. Such a long week!! So emotionally draining. I am sure it is physically stressful but I have not allowed myself to stop and realize that feeling for months. My body has been on high alert in case Heather needs my and Rob’s help. However, I realized today that we are at the halfway point of these treatments and I can no longer carry this burden without the help of her father. Even though we have been divorced for over 30 years, our role and bond as parents have never ceased. She was our last child and his love for his “Feather” is tender even though he sometimes doesn’t get her!!

  Heather has chosen not to let him know about the treatments. I have had frequent conversations with him and her stepmother during this time and I constantly have had to skirt the fact that we are spending so much time watching her slip into the abyss. They haven’t a clue what is happening. How would I tell them about the first treatment and have them fully understand my fear as I watched them hook her up to all the monitors and start the anesthetic. I doubt anyone could fully comprehend my dread as I saw the fear in her eyes a second before she went under. I watched at the foot of her bed as they shoved the breathing tube into her throat and started the oxygen to keep her alive. I followed all the machines as the doctors explained their functions. But I mostly watched her artificial breaths register as she literally slipped into the deepest abyss possible for the brain, zero. I did not exhale for sometimes 30 minutes until they could remove the tube and her own breathing began to register on the monitor, irregularly at first but then smooth, beautiful breaths!! Trust me! The Lord knew all about all of this because I told him about every tiny part of it as I begged him to keep her safe and heal her over and over again. I think he finally said ENOUGH! I HAVE THIS! SHE WILL MAKE IT THROUGH THIS!!

  Her brother and sister knew and I shared every detail with them. Now her father needed to know and share the process. I wasn’t sure how Heather would react to this request.

  SIXTEEN

  ON BEHALF OF LOVED ONES LONG PASSED

  LATE MONDAY MORNING MY brother and sister both showed up at my new place before my sixth treatment. We’d seen more of each other in the last two weeks than we had the entire year. There is a part of me that wishes we were all closer to each other than we are, but I know how unrealistic that wish is. Both of my siblings have five kids, which means they have to manage five different, ridiculous schedules. They and their spouses both work, and when you take a look at my schedule and how angry I get when someone has the gall to call me during my constantly thwarted attempts to complete All the Things Needing to Get Done, I think we are as close as we can possibly be. We wish each other happy birthday and gather for holidays and special events. We will text each other when our mom informs us that one of us is having a hard time.

  But our shared heritage bonded us in a way that I am not bonded to anyone else. Our shared survival of the divorce and our continuing agony over certain things we endured during childhood make us feel a bit like we fought in a war together. Don’t get me wrong: I know that our childhood was privileged and it could have been far worse than the relative luxury with which we grew up. But the three of us were in that trench together. We all grew up terrified of our father’s temper.

  All five of us climbed into the minivan and made the winding trip up to Colorow Way. My mother talked the entire time about the treatment, what they would see, who they would meet. I rolled up my sleeves to show them both my bruises, and my brother let out a “Holy crap!” He’s by far the most left-leaning member of my family other than me, if “a centimeter to the left of right-wing” qualifies as left-leaning. But he is still a devout, practicing, Diet Coke–drinking Mormon who does not engage in profanity.

  The bruises had spread several inches up and down my arms and they’d turned a gut-churning shade of brown. They didn’t hurt as bad as they looked, but I wouldn’t walk around in public without having them covered up.

  I felt a little awkward walking in with my crew, all five of us, all Southern five of us. Each time we saw someone as we walked from the door to the waiting room, I said, “Hi! I decided to bring the entire state of Tennessee with me today. Hope you don’t mind. They’re polite and can make a mean bowl of cheese grits.”

  I walked up and said, “Yo!” to Greg, who winked while nodding at me. He had already printed out my wristband. After I signed in, he wrapped the wristband around my arm and handed me the clipboard with the sheet I always had to fill out. You know, the How Unbearable Is Life? one. I carried it back to a seat next to my mother, who was supervising my family, keeping them in line.

  I printed my name at
the top, filled in the date, and, without thinking, just glanced down at the questions. Falling asleep? Still no problem there. Sleeping during the night? Hm. I don’t remember waking up during the night over the weekend. In fact, I’d slept really well. Feeling sad?

  Wait.

  Hold up.

  I squinted as I tried to remember what I had checked before the fifth treatment. And then it hit me: I had checked the box next to “I feel sad nearly all of the time.” Had I really checked that? Really? Had I felt like that? Why was I feeling that way? I literally had to squint to remember what it was like to feel that way. Because I wasn’t sad. I hadn’t felt sadness since . . . was it really that recently? I couldn’t comprehend this sheet of paper. Without checking any boxes next to any of the questions on the front side of the paper, I flipped it over almost as if I’d stumbled on an ancient artifact.

  The room almost started spinning, but not because anything was wrong. I just could not wrap my head around the rest of that sheet of paper.

  11. View of Myself

  On Friday I had checked the box next to “I think almost constantly about major and minor defects in myself.” Three days ago. I had checked that. I believed that? I did? Why would I ever believe such a thing?

  12. Thoughts of Death or Suicide

  Suicide, of course, had never really been in the cards. But had I really felt that life was empty or wonder if it was worth living? I was now so happy to be alive that, without even realizing it, I had taken a shower and blown my hair dry that morning. I was starving the whole time, sure, but I’d put on clean clothes, worn a necklace, and even put on a dab of perfume. I hadn’t considered how strange it was for me to have done those things without even thinking.

  As I mentioned, there’s this phenomenon with people who suffer from depression: often we can’t really tell that we’re feeling better after a change in medication or some other kind of help. It’s usually the people around us who notice and have to point it out (like my roommates in college mentioning that I’d stopped slamming doors after I started taking Zoloft).

  I would have eventually realized that I felt better when I went back to the psychiatrist for a follow-up visit and he asked me how I was feeling. When we’re sad, we may express that we are sad, but the feeling is so overpowering that we aren’t thinking about it as much as we are feeling it, enduring it. So when that feeling turns into happiness, it’s just what we’re feeling. Putting words to it whether by telling us about the difference or pulling those words out of us makes us realize the difference and appreciate it.

  I knew that I didn’t want to be dead anymore. I had seen color and heard music and wanted to breathe air. But I did not understand the significance of the change until I read the words on this piece of paper. It was life-changing.

  13. General Interest

  There was not an option that read “I am finally interested in music and books and television and movies and politics and writing stories about my kids and spending time with friends and walking my dog.” I still hadn’t had sex, but just sitting there, thinking about all the things I didn’t even realize that I had missed so dearly, I suddenly thought, “A passionate kiss with tongue doesn’t sound bad right about now. And wouldn’t it be nice if someone touched my boob?”

  I’d been checking the box next to “I have virtually no interest in formerly pursued activities” this whole time. I had the urge right then to run out of the clinic, drive straight to the airport, and hop a flight to New York, where I’d spend days doing nothing but walking around, taking photos, and listening to music. Other than my kids, there is nothing in life I love as much as walking around a city and taking photos while listening to music. Out of nowhere I blurted, “I haven’t picked up my DSLR in over a year. A year!”

  “Your what?” my mother asked, confused.

  “My big camera. The one I used to pack with me on every trip. I used it every day for almost seven years and I haven’t picked it up in over twelve months.”

  “Where did that realization come from?”

  “This piece of paper, Mom. It’s a revelation. I’m so glad they’ve made me fill it out, because do you understand what has happened here?”

  “I have an idea,” she said with a sly smile.

  “No, I don’t think anyone realizes what has happened here. The difference in how I feel now from what I felt just three days ago. How could . . . how could anyone possibly know?”

  “You can see it in your eyes. If you hadn’t said anything to me yesterday, I would have been able to tell by looking at you this morning.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, first, your hair looks amazing and you smell incredible.”

  “Yeah, you know, I didn’t even plan to shower this morning, I just did it. Like a normal person. I didn’t even think about it.”

  “But your eyes are saying everything I need to know. They are beaming, and I can tell that the light inside them is coming from inside you.”

  As she said those words I could feel the light inside of me. I felt full of light. It was swelling inside my lungs.

  Just then Lauren walked into the waiting room and approached me with her head cocked and a giant smile on her face. The ends of her hair were died a vibrant purple today.

  “You look amazing!” she exclaimed while touching my shoulder. “I love this shirt. Where did you get it?”

  I looked down at my shirt, having forgotten what I’d chosen that morning from my closet. It’s so stuffed with shirts that if you aren’t careful when you open it they all might topple onto your head.

  “Oh, this thing?” I answered. “I subscribe to one of those services that sends me clothes, because if I had one wish in life it would be ‘Please don’t make me shop for anything at all whatsoever.’ ”

  “Well, you look great today. Not that you haven’t looked great every time you’ve been here, but today: Wow. And also, I’m saying that because I mean it, not because I’m buttering you up for the test you have to take.”

  “OH GOD, THE TEST!” I shouted. “Does everyone who takes this test get as nervous as I do? If they don’t, please lie to me and tell me they do.”

  One of the things I agreed to when I signed up for this treatment was something that I did not want to agree to at all, not one bit. Yes, you can administer a dose of anesthesia that will make my brain nearly flatline, and fine, my mom can watch as you shake my body like a rag doll trying to get a breathing tube down my throat before I suffocate. But I am very hesitant to sign the waiver that states “may result in death” if you’re gonna make me take a test afterward.

  Before starting treatment, after the fifth treatment, and after finishing treatment, I would need to take what’s called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment mental test. You may have heard of this test, as it is the test a physician gave to Donald Trump, who bragged that he had passed it with flying colors, and good for him. He can recognize the outline of a lion! Superior cognition.

  Before this sixth treatment, Dr. Mickey called me back into an office to take the assessment test. But not before I’d joked with Lauren about how I wanted to throw up due to anxiety about it.

  “I feel like I need to ace this test—like you guys are legally obligated to commit me if I don’t.”

  “Don’t sweat it. Today is Monday and we only commit people on Tuesdays.”

  Dr. Mickey sat across a desk from me in a windowless room next to Dr. Bushnell’s office. “How are you feeling today, after the weekend?” he asked, holding a few sheets of paper in his hands.

  “Right now I’d like to vomit,” I answered. Then I realized that Dr. Mickey is not really familiar or comfortable with my style of humor. “Not because of you! It’s just I hate tests. And you’re making me take one. You’re holding it in your hands. I see it. Right there. So I suppose technically it is because of you. But at some point I will forgive you, maybe. Overall I’m feeling really good! And I can’t believe I just said that. With an exclamation point at the end, even.”
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  “So you’re still feeling like you did when you texted me on Saturday? And, yeah, sorry about the test. I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

  “I am feeling just like I did when I texted you, yes,” I assured him. “I feel like I can see color again. It’s strange. I . . . I don’t know what happened.”

  “This is great to hear. Great to hear,” he said. I could tell that he might be thinking about the initial talk we had had before treatment began. He’d had to assess whether or not I was a good fit for the study, Dr. Bushnell’s recommendation notwithstanding. I barely spoke during that interview, barely looked at him as he asked me several probing questions in the gentlest way. Did I think I was a good person? Did I think I was a worthy person? Did I have bad days or did I feel bad about life as a whole? It was when he asked about my kids that I totally lost it. I cried so hard that I had to wipe my face on my coat. He asked if I thought I was a good mother. Even though I knew I was taking care of all of their basic needs—food, laundry, school, piano, bedtime, etc.—I truly believed that they would be better off without me. I knew that they could sense my sadness. How could they not?

  “So, the test . . .” He set down one of the pieces of paper. “I know you hate tests. But, again, let’s take our time. There is no pressure here. You’re going to do fine.”