I made the decision to let him die.
No more feeding, no more antibiotics, no more cancer treatments. Just pain meds and sedatives. He was at peace when he died. His anxiety, dread and fear were gone before he took his last breath.
I will never again be at peace.
Sharon Gerger has had to make some tough decisions over the last year. Writing about them helps her to deal with the “too much”.
I left your room and wandered down the path beside the pond. I reached the tree you’d called your favourite when I’d pushed you along the path in a wheelchair borrowed from the hospice. It screamed at me on a breezeless day. I knew then you had left me behind.
Sharon Gerger is currently sitting in a hospice with her 92 year old father. She could not convince him to go for a walk with her in a borrowed wheelchair but she knows he would have loved the noisy cottonwood tree on that breezy day.
“I love my…. Never mind.”
“Mom, tell me.”
“I can’t remember what it’s called.”
“Point to it and I’ll give you the word.”
“Why don’t you get mad at me like your father does?”
Dad died fifteen years ago. “Died” is not a word I’m going to give her today.
Sharon Gerger lives with three older rescue cats, Edith, Walter and Lucy, her newest family member is the crankiest cat ever but her heart is slowly defrosting and I think she might learn to tolerate Sharon someday.
I stand near the base of the waterfall waiting for my muddled mind to bring me the memory of us, holding hands and leaping off the rocks at the top, laughing as we surfaced in the icy water below. It won’t come. Perhaps I only read it in a book.
Sharon Gerger loves the challenge of creating a world in fifty words.
I did not look in the mirror and think, “I wonder if there’s a fancy apron I could sew that draws unwanted attention to my generous hips, and wait, wouldn’t it be cool if I could only find noncomplementary fabric colours and patterns in my stash?”
But here we are.
Sharon Gerger has recently retired and is cycling through all of her interests now that time has been set free in her life. Up next, learning to play the harmonica. Her writing appears here and there, in print and on the internet.
He forced her retirement.
She used to love writing. He mocked her stories, told her he paid her to edit, not write drivel.
His words ate her confidence and she stopped writing.
For a while.
Bookkeeping will soon discover a theft. She’s left plenty of writing behind to implicate him.
Sharon Gerger is about to retire. She will not be committing any crimes on her way out the door. Her writing appears here and there, in print and on the internet.
I give him a teddy bear and tell him it will keep him company, someone to talk to, while I work.
He returns him minutes later, saying the bear won’t stop talking about scratching his bum on trees and digging for bugs.
Such is life in quarantine with my husband.
Sharon Gerger loves to write and play more than she likes to work.
I’ll calm you, I’ll keep you busy. I’ll scratch that itch. I’ll give you a reason to go outside for some fresh air. Sometimes, I’ll give you a rush. Most of the time though, I will just give you a measure of comfort.
Then, I will kill you.
Love,
Cigarettes
Sharon Gerger has been published in the Globe and Mail and Erma Bombeck Workshop and has a story in Laugh Out Loud, an award-winning book that is for sale on Amazon.