Dying Wishes

by Judith K Ivie

  When we arrived at the diner, Marianna directed us to a booth near the far end of the counter, where John and Margo were already seated. “Good thing we timed this early,” John commented. “They’re setting up inside for a huge anniversary luncheon. One of the waitresses here is celebrating her fiftieth anniversary, can you believe it? The place will be packed in another hour.”

  I thought about which waitress that might be. “Must be Janice,” I concluded. “She surely doesn’t look old enough, but she’s been married forever—and to the same guy.” We all smiled at our respective second spouses as Sherri filled our coffee cups.

  “I hear you’re having a birthday today, so the coffee’s on the house,” she grinned and vanished on her rounds before I could even thank her.

  “Sorry,” John apologized. “I spilled the beans.”

  Margo raised her cup to me. “On the subject of not lookin’ your age, Sugar, here’s to turnin’ fifty. Nobody would ever guess it by your appearance.”

  It was high praise, coming from the former beauty queen. We clinked cups, and I determinedly changed the subject. “This is one month I’m glad to put behind us. Who knew that old people’s lives were filled with so much drama? My illusions of a peaceful retirement are pretty much shot.”

  This time it was Armando’s turn to laugh. “I have not had that dream for many years, Cara. I believe it left me around the time I realized I would be spending my retirement years with you. Interesting? Yes. Peaceful? Never.” He shrugged. “Life is, how do you call it, a trade-out, is it not?”

  “Trade-off,” I corrected, “and you’re absolutely right. Otherwise, I never would have ended up with a pack rat whose bedroom looks like the storage area at Goodwill.”

  “Nor I with someone who must have everything in its place at all times,” he retorted.

  “Guess we’ll just have to make the best of it,” I smiled at him.

  While we continued to chat, I could hear Marianna greeting and seating people in the back room.

  “If we’re going to order anything but coffee, we’d better do it,” John observed. “That anniversary party is about five minutes from launching.”

  “Better Janice than me,” I said and turned to look over my shoulder at the milling guests. Balloons now bounced along the ceiling, and streamers trailed festively from them over the tables. “That’s quite a turnout. I’m happy for Janice and her husband that so many of their friends came to be with them.”

  “Real friends will do that,” Margo agreed with a giggle, and as if on cue, the crowd began to sing.

  “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you …”

  “That’s funny,” I said. “I thought this was supposed to be an anniversary party.” My eyes narrowed as some of the patrons began to look very familiar.

  “Happy birthday, dear Ka-ate …”

  I whirled on Armando in horror. “We got you,” he grinned, and I wanted to strangle him.

  As the guests cheered and laughed, Armando and the rest of the traitors in my booth half led, half dragged me into the back room where Emma, Joey, Justine, Strutter and her entire family, and a dizzying collection of friends and neighbors waited to greet me. The Henstock sisters waved gaily from a booth, as did my neighbor Mary Feeney. Emma and Joey came to intercept us. Both looked plenty worried, as well they might.

  “Do you have any idea how sorry I am that I had you right now?” I told them from between clenched teeth.

  “Ma, straighten out your face. You look like you’re about to be guillotined,” Joey pleaded.

  “I begged them not to do this, Momma, you have no idea how hard, but look!” Emma pointed to a very large man in a brown dog suit, moving from table to table. He appeared to be collecting cash donations for some cause. “No gifts, I managed to win that vote. Instead, there’s a volunteer from the pet rescue society collecting contributions in your name.”

  I actually felt faint. “You are collecting money from our friends and neighbors at a party to which you invited them? What could you be thinking?” I looked around furtively. “Good lord, is there anyone you didn’t coerce into attending this fundraiser? I’m surprised you didn’t bag Michael and Sheila into …”

  “Daddy!” Emma announced loudly over my shoulder, and Joey grinned broadly.

  “Glad you could make it, Pop.”

  I pasted a phony smile on my face and turned around to confront Sheila, stylish and composed as always, although a bit perplexed at the moment, and Michael, whose eyes positively glittered with amusement.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” he assured us. I just barely resisted the urge to kick him smartly in the shins. Other than my offspring, Michael was the one person in the world who knew how much I loathed the contrived festivity and commercialism of birthday parties for adults, which had become worse than Christmas. I had spent years trying to persuade him that I was entitled to my point of view, however different it might be from his, but he had remained convinced that one day I could be brought into the mainstream. This was the party he had wanted to throw me for twenty years, and somebody had finally pulled it off.

  It was then that I had the epiphany, what Oprah used to call an “aha moment.” This event wasn’t about me, I realized. It was about my relatives and friends and neighbors and colleagues who really did love and appreciate me and wanted to let me know it. They didn’t mean to upset me. They just couldn’t figure out how else to do it, so was I really going to spoil it for them?

  I looked around for the guy in the dog suit and couldn’t help laughing. He had linked one hairy arm through Armando’s and was patting my husband’s pockets, looking, he said, for a dog biscuit or a large amount of cash. He slipped Armando’s wallet out of his back pocket and woofed joyously.

  “Serves you right,” I said under my breath as I clapped with the others.

  After that I surrendered to my fate, to everyone’s enormous relief, and let the events wash over me. The hell with it, I thought. At least it’s for a good cause. I even managed to smile at the appropriate moments, although I had the feeling it was probably a mistake. If they believed I was truly enjoying myself, they would be encouraged to do it again.

  The breakfast buffet was sumptuous, and we put aside worries about thickening waistlines to dig in. I found a spot at the long center table between Emma and Justine and prepared to enjoy my western omelet. As I forked in my first bite, I waved gaily at Joey, who was now having his pocket picked by the hirsute volunteer.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked Justine. “Just a couple of months to go before the big event, eh?”

  She sighed and shifted uncomfortably. “It seems like forever. I’m already as big as a barn, and they tell me this is when the baby really starts gaining weight. At least it isn’t hot anymore.”

  I nodded, remembering. “Thank goodness for that. Any plans afoot for a baby shower yet?”

  “Oh, god,” she groaned, looking around at the guests and decorations and food and noise. “Do I have to?”

  “Sorry, but it’s really the quickest way to acquire everything you’ll need for the baby.” She made a face, and I thought perhaps I had found a kindred spirit among my tribe at last.

  Emma nudged me. “Heads up. Here comes the birthday cake.”

  I suppressed a groan of my own at the thought of all those candles. “Please tell me you didn’t do this to me.”

  “Okay, I didn’t do this to you. Armando and Sherri did.” To my relief, Armando approached, carrying a very small plate. Instead of a gaudy cake laden with a conflagration of candles, he carried a single bagel “frosted” with my favorite strawberry jam. One chunky candle occupied the center hole. I looked up at him gratefully as he put the dish down before me and kissed my cheek. During another chorus of “Happy Birthday,” I found myself giving some thought to what my wish should be. Then I squeezed my eyes shut and wished with all my might that none of my family members would ever throw me another party. I blew out the candle in one whoosh
.

  “Bagels for everybody,” Sherri announced and began making the rounds with a basket heaped with the fresh rolls.

  “What did you wish, Momma,” Emma asked, “as if I didn’t already know?”

  “Not telling,” I teased her. “It might not come true.”

  All things considered, it hadn’t been so bad, I admitted an hour later as I thanked and said goodbye to the last of the guests. Emma went out to the parking lot with Joey to get Justine settled into the car. I was pleased to see no trace of wistfulness in her expression as she waved them on their way. She looked relieved and totally at peace with her decision. Even Armando agreed that he no longer saw a baby in her eyes, at least for now.

  I went in search of the pet rescue volunteer and found him counting what looked to be a goodly amount of cash in a corner booth. He had removed the headpiece of his costume and unzipped the front. He now looked like a slightly graying, rather sweaty patron in hairy pajamas.

  “How did we do?” I asked, curious despite my discomfort at having hit on my guests for donations.

  “Very nicely indeed,” he responded, “even though it’s Sunday. I was a little worried about that.”

  “Why would that have any effect on contributions?”

  “Church,” he said matter of factly. “Most of these folks attended a service somewhere this morning, and it’s pass-the-plate day. Makes it tough to get them to open their wallets a second time, but we did all right, more than all right. We thank you.”

  “No, I thank you,” I protested. “You probably won’t believe this, but you made my day.”

  I went in search of Armando, telling myself that the dreaded birthday was turning out pretty well in spite of everything. Best of all, I still had Jersey Boys and my quiet dinner with my husband to look forward to. How would he put it? Oh, yes. Life, it is a trade-out.

  Epilogue

  Jasmine left us on a Tuesday in early November. I noticed a tremor in her hind legs when I fed her at noon, and half an hour later she couldn’t summon the strength to climb out of her litter box. She threw herself down on her side and meowed piteously for me to come and help her, and of course, I did.

  When we arrived at Catzablanca, the Rocky Hill clinic where our cats had been cared for their whole lives, Jasmine and I were both treated with extraordinary compassion and gentleness. After Mary Jean and the doctor administered the intravenous overdose that ended Jasmine’s futile struggle peacefully and quickly, she returned the body to me in an examining room. I squeezed Jasmine’s little toes, half of them pink and half of them black, for the last time and said my silent goodbyes. Then I went home and cried for three days.

  When the worst of the storm had passed, Emma and I took our customary walk and stood by the Spring Street Pond watching the adult swans prepare to leave for the winter. The cygnets had already departed, heeding some call only they could hear, and we knew George and Laura would be next.

  “Jasmine had to die someday, and nearly twenty-two is a crazy age for a cat to live to,” I said.

  “I know, but she was always so feisty, she seemed younger to me,” Emma said sadly.

  “Just like me,” I joked, “but I’ll be leaving, too, one day.”

  She frowned. “Will you send me a message from wherever you go, Momma?”

  I shook my head slowly. “No can do, Dearie. If that were possible, there are about six people I would have expected to hear from by now, including my own mother, but so far, radio silence. Don’t worry. You already have everything you need from me inside you for good or bad, like it or not,” I added to lighten the somber tone of our conversation.

  “I know it will happen someday, but I don’t like thinking about it.”

  “Nobody does. It’s a burden of being human. As far as anyone knows, we’re the only species that’s aware of our mortality. It takes courage to face up to that, and a lot of folks just can’t without some sort of crutch. The fear of death is the foundation of all religious dogma, but I go along with Stephen Hawking. He says heaven is just a fairy tale for people who are afraid of the dark.”

  “What makes him right and everybody else wrong?”

  I laughed out loud. “An excellent question, but it’s not everybody else, not by a long shot. About a million of our best thinkers happen to agree with him. I guess it’s comforting to believe one has an inside track to life everlasting, but nobody really does … in my opinion,” I added with a smile. “Feel free to disagree with me. I’ll love you anyway.”

  “So according to you, all we’ve got is each other for as long as we’re here.”

  “That’s quite a lot, Em, don’t you think? I’ve got you, Armando, Joey, Justine, some of the best friends in the world, and a raft of other good, smart, caring people in my life.

  “Daddy, too?”

  “Michael and Sheila for sure. We don’t think alike about a lot of things, but I’m so grateful that we’re all friends. Now there’s little Allison coming along, a whole new person for us to get to know and love.”

  Emma was quiet for a while. Then, “And our pets.”

  “Absolutely. Who else loves us no matter what, as long as we feed them and love them back? Jasmine never gave a fig if I looked like hell or had PMS or forgot to do the laundry. She forgave you kids everything, even when you left her behind to live your own lives. She was still glad to see you every time you walked in the door, never judged, never criticized. She just purred like crazy when she saw you coming. She taught us all a lot about living.”

  “Dying, too, she taught us a lot about that. When the time came, she let you know so you could help her. Thank goodness you could, as hard as it was for you to do, right?” She looked at me questioningly, and I nodded.

  “What will happen when one of the swans dies?”

  “The remaining one will find another mate, and life will go on. That’s the way it works.”

  After another minute, we turned back toward the green, where our cars were parked. The peacefulness of early November, compared to the frenzy of the last week of October, allowed us to take our time. We admired the new landscaping that had restored the area following a freakish tornado that zigzagged through Old Wethersfield a couple of years ago, carelessly selecting its victims. The fact of the tornado itself, a weather phenomenon rarely experienced by New Englanders, had been terrifying, but the devastation of our beautiful green had been heartbreaking. For days we viewed the corpses of trees that had withstood hundreds of years of all sorts of weather, only to be torn savagely from the earth in a matter of seconds by the capricious twister.

  Before long, though, the townspeople put aside their shock and made quick work of clearing up, restoring and replanting. It wasn’t the same, of course. It couldn’t be, but anyone who hadn’t seen the green before the tornado would never know anything had happened.

  We looked up at the Victorian that had been the Henstock sisters’ home until a few years ago. It, too, had been lovingly restored to its former glory by its new owners.

  “When are Ada and Lavinia moving into Vista View?” Emma asked.

  “The fifteenth, I think. Bert Rosenthal is planning a little social to welcome them. He’s becoming quite attentive,” I chuckled.

  “To Ada or Lavinia?”

  “Both,” I shrugged. “He seems up to the task.”

  Emma grinned at the thought of a geriatric ménage a trois. “Whatever,” she said. “I’m glad someone has a love life.”

  “No hot prospects on the horizon? Somehow I doubt that.”

  She smiled again enigmatically. “Oh, there are always prospects,” she assured me.

  There are indeed, I thought, and at the moment ours are looking pretty darned good.

  Author’s Note

  Dying Wishes is not intended to be a legal resource or a how-to manual with regard to self-deliverance or physician assisted suicide. It is fiction and is meant merely to encourage continued conversation among people on both sides of these issues and to make readers aware that
the legal environment is changing. Indeed, the laws change almost weekly.

  Many nonfiction books have been written on the topics of physician assisted suicide, death with dignity laws, voluntary refusal of food and fluid, and the legal documents that we all need to have in place to be sure that our wishes at the end of life are known and respected. However, the information in many such books is out of date within months of publication.

  The most up-to-the minute information on these and related topics can be found on the Internet. If you do not have Internet access in your home, you can get on line at your public library, where you will be directed to legitimate websites. I urge you to do some research, come to some decisions, and put them in writing. The suffering you save may be your own.

  --Judith K. Ivie

  Meet Author Judith K. Ivie

  A lifelong Connecticut resident, Judith K. Ivie has worked in public relations, advertising, and the international tradeshow industry, as well as serving as an administrative assistant to several corporate and nonprofit executives.

  Along the way Judi also produced three nonfiction books, as well as numerous articles and essays. A few years back, she broadened her repertoire to include fiction, and the Kate Lawrence Mysteries were launched. Dying Wishes is the fifth title in the series. All are available in trade paperback format from www.MainlyMurderPress.com and as e-books for the Amazon Kindle reader at www.Amazon.com. To read a sample of Waiting for Armando, the title that launched this series, please turn the page.

  Judi strives to provide lively, entertaining reading that takes readers away from their work and worries for a few hours, stimulates thought on contemporary issues, and gives them a laugh along the way. Proceeds from all on-line sales benefit the Our Companions Domestic Animal Sanctuary in Ashford, Connecticut.