by Julie Webb Kelley
Murder never goes as planned, so being gentle with yourself is a must. From the onset, you have to believe that when -- not if, when -- something goes wrong, it’s not your fault. That’s what Dugan told me. He’d say, it’s the nature of endings to be faulty. They’re restricting and suffocating. Endings are never tidy; they always interfere with the plan. Knowing this up front will help you when the bump at the end of road comes, because it will come.
If only my husband had died sooner I wouldn’t have to deal with all this fallout -- the police investigation, the endless questions and phone calls, the trips to the police station. The doctor said he would die of heart failure before the winter was gone. What did he know? Now these adolescent police officers refuse to leave a widow to her grieving.
“How did your husband get his medications, Mrs. Thanos?”
“I picked them up for him every month from the pharmacy, of course. He hasn’t been able to drive for years. His heart. It was bad. His bad heart is in your report, isn’t it?”
“Did you see him take his medications?”
“He took medications every day. The bottles used to sit on that table by his bed until you people took them away.”
“Did you see him take his digitalis on the day he died?”
“Of course I saw him take his medicine. He was always taking medicine. He had a bad heart, for crying out loud.”
“The autopsy showed that your husband had a high level of digitalis in his system. Did you know that?”
“Of course I know he was on digitalis. He had a bad heart. Heart failure. He was dying of heart failure.”
“Did you see him taking extra digitalis at any time on the day he died?”
The questions, the pounding, the probing of those people didn’t stop for weeks.
By the time winter came and went and his heart still hadn’t given up, his doctor labeled him with lung cancer. Dugan snarled at the diagnosis, walked out of the doctor’s office and never spoke to him again. When I helped him to bed that night, I saw death in his eyes for the first time, like a slow promise spreading across his insides. Life is murder, he said. I won’t be slaughtered like this. Not like this. You watch and see, I’m not going to let them tell me how to die. I’ll end this my own way.
“Was your husband in a lot of pain, ma’am?”
“Of course he was in pain. Every day he was in pain. He had lung cancer. He had a failing heart.”
“Did your husband mention to you that he wanted to end his life?”
“Of course he did. Every day he said, I want out of this hell. I hate this.”
“Did you know that he was planning to kill himself?”
“It’s the doctors who said he was dying. It was disease and cancer and medicine that killed him, not himself.”
Dugan’s birthday was in the spring. I insisted we have the kids and grandkids over. He never told them about the lung cancer, but he did smile that day. He hugged each one of them with a skintight strain that only I noticed. Dad looks tired, mom. How’s his heart? The kids asked all the right questions and listened to all the right answers. After they left, Dugan planned his death.
“You say he managed his own medications?”
“Yes, of course he did. Right up ‘til the day he died.”
“Did you ever help him read the labels? Or open the bottles? Or get him water? Or . . .”
“Of course I did. He was weak. He had a bad heart. He had lung cancer. I told you that.”
“Did you know your husband was taking too much of his digitalis medication?”
His plan was to take the digitalis all at once after I got home from the pharmacy with a full bottle. But instead, he doubled his dose every day until the headaches began, then he started getting scared. He hadn’t been able to see straight for several days, everything was blurry, he said. He cried one day when he saw blue halos around the bedroom light. It was angels come to take him home, he said. But he was wrong. It’s just a bump in the road, I told him, go easy on yourself. The angels wouldn’t come to take him home for another five days.
“Mrs. Thanos, you were aware that your husband wanted to die then?”
“Of course I was. His doctor was too. Why aren’t you questioning him?”
“You were the last one to see your husband alive, ma’am. Why did you wait to call an ambulance?”
“Who said I waited?”
“You did. In the police report you said, “I waited about an hour before calling the doctor’s office. He looked so peaceful in there. I wanted him to enjoy that feeling of peace.””
“It didn't feel like waiting. My husband didn’t want any heroic measures done by those ambulance people. He wanted to die. Just die. He was tired. He was sick and tired.”
The day before Dugan died, I said goodbye. He was bloated and hadn’t opened his eyes for hours. His skin was peeling and weeping. Coming out of the bathroom after my shower, I didn’t recognize him. This is not the man I married. This is not part of the plan. I lay in the bed next to him; every breath sounded like he was drowning. Tremors spanned his body. Worst of all, he hadn’t peed in three days. This is just a bump in the road, I whispered to him. After all these years together, his voice was stamped inside my brain. I heard him say, life is murder and murder never goes as planned.
“Did your husband talk about killing himself?”
“We’re old, officer. We’ve talked about dying every day for years.”
“Thank you for coming in, Mrs. Thanos. We’ll call if we have any more questions.”
"I have a funeral to plan, son. I'll be busy for a while.”
“One more thing. Did he ever talk to you about how he wanted to die?”
“If you are suggesting that my husband had a choice in death, his choices would have looked like this. First choice: heart failure. Second choice: lung cancer. He didn’t pick those two diseases as his preferred method of dying, officer. He didn’t want to die of heart failure. He didn’t want to die of lung cancer. Did he ever talk about how he wanted to die? Yes, he did. He wanted to die in his sleep, with me by his side, after spending a long and lazy day with our children and grandchildren. But that choice wasn’t on his list. He didn’t plan on disease and cancer, but life doesn’t go as planned. You’re probably too young to know that yet. But someday, when you’re older and life slams you with a murdering disease, I hope you’re brave enough to face it the way my Dugan did . . . he was determined that life’s murdering ritual of disease wouldn’t go as planned.”
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