Bernice looked like hell, and it scared him because he’d never seen her in that state before. He pretended to be focused on driving, swinging through the traffic circle onto Government Road, then more or less rolling downhill into Duncan, his foot hovering between the gas pedal and brake.
“MAID,” she said bitterly. “MAID in Canada, eh?”
Harry had informed them of his wish to apply for Medical Assistance In Dying that second morning when they returned to the hospital to be with him. He’d spent the first day drowsing on a gurney, parked in a lineup against the far wall of the emergency ward. It wasn’t until evening, after they’d left at his urging, that a space opened up for him in a room shared with three other patients.
“A space upstairs, indeed!” Bernice fumed. “How could they discuss this assisted dying thing without me present? How could they make a decision like that?”
Well, he wanted to point out, it hadn’t really been ‘decided’.
Harry had grumbled about his desire to ‘stop living’ to the attending physician, who informed him there was a possibility he could apply for MAID—given his physical condition and the fact that he’d ended up in hospital—then Harry told Bernice that’s what he ‘wanted to do’, after asking Buddy and Jennifer to leave them alone for a while. By the time Buddy and Bernice had finished their private session, Jennifer had left for work…
Count your blessings, Buddy thought.
He hadn’t told Bernice about the conversation he’d had with Harry a couple of days before. He’d been waiting for the right moment.
“I know this is going to sound pathetic,” Bernice lamented, “but it’s only a couple of months til his hundredth birthday. Couldn’t he at least wait til then before kicking his own bucket?” She glanced and smiled. “He would have laughed at that,” she said. “At the notion of kicking his own bucket.
“That’s one of the things I’ve always loved about Harry. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a proud man, and stubborn, and not at all easy to get along with, even after eighty-odd years of practice. But he’s always been one to take a joke and respond in kind… In kind, you understand, not like some prickly old buzzard, thinks he’s too perfect and majestic for a bit of good-natured ribbing.”
“You know,” Buddy hesitated, “the hardest thing for him will be leaving you and Jenny.”
“I know.”
Her anguish made him sad in a way Buddy couldn’t quite understand. Disoriented. He felt he was driving under the influence and that he might stray woozily into the opposite lane, head-on.
“It’s impossible,” she lamented. “Just impossible! I feel so angry, on the one hand, so selfish on the other.”
She huddled against the passenger door, dabbing her eyes with a Kleenex. Buddy reached across and squeezed her shoulder. “Loving him isn’t selfish, Bernie. Loving and being angry are sometimes part-in-parcel. Even loving and leaving makes sense sometimes, eh?”
“Oh! I do wish you wouldn’t always be reminding me how sensible we’re supposed to be, Buddy Hope!” she managed a feeble smile.
“Harry and I talked the other day, down at Kin Beach,” Buddy hesitated. “And he said some things that didn’t make sense to me at the time, but I sort of understand now…” He paused again. Bernice regarded him with an expectant look. “He said how tired he was, how he was ‘just existing, not living anymore’, and how he wished he could put an end to it.”
“Never told me that,” Bernice shot him an accusing glance.
“We both know why Harry wouldn’t tell you, Bernice. And I would have been betraying his trust if I spoke about it sooner. I couldn’t do that. I’m sorry.”
She nodded, understanding, but not quite forgiving, he thought.
“In a way, I think he was preparing me for this moment,” Buddy said. “I think, now, he would want me to talk, so I’m going to tell you the most important thing I took from that conversation, Bernice, the thing that will stick with me until my turn comes.”
“Tell me for God’s sake! You’re worse than a watched kettle.”
“He said the most important thing in life is giving. That life without giving has no purpose, no meaning, and that he has nothing left to give; he’s just too worn out.”
Bernice stared out the window pensively. Buddy watched, letting the words settle. Then he realized there was more to say. “I thought that was the end of it, Bernice. But it wasn’t. He didn’t tell me this out loud, and maybe I’m making it up, but I think now he was trying to say his life has been an act of giving, stretched over the better part of a hundred years, giving to family, friends, co-workers, community, country; now there’s nothing left to give… except…”
Bernice frowned uncomprehendingly.
“Except his life, Bernice…
Please! I’m sorry. Let me finish,” he pleaded when she frowned.
“I think he wants to give his life as a final act, not let it drain away as a sort of inevitable accident, part of a perpetual, mindless cycle. He wants to say ‘I’m done’ and set himself and everyone else free. It’s his choice to end things before getting to the point where he has nothing, absolutely nothing left to give anymore.”
“He’s being a hero by deserting us?” she said crossly.
“I’ll shut up now,” he apologized. “But yes—by leaving us while he’s still the capable, competent Harry we know and love, he’s being brave.”
They drove the rest of the way to VORLand’s end in glum silence.
“I sometimes wish you weren’t so smart, Buddy Hope,” Bernice said, levering herself out of the Matrix while he held the door open. “So bloody philosophical. I sometimes wish you’d let me figure things out my own way, instead of putting these fancy notions into my head. But thank you.”
She reached up with her gnarled fingers and touched his cheek, held him in her gaze. “Thank you from me and Harry.”
Next: Living Wake