Read Online A Good Death by Gil Courtemanche - Free Book Online Page A

dismissed.

NOW IT’S MOSTLY THE CHILDREN WHO ARE GETTING THEIR PRESENTS. OUR YOUTHFUL SANTA HAS FIGURED OUT THAT IT’S BETTER not to pick gifts at random and run the risk of frustrating the younger ones. Around the table, which is cluttered with desserts, half-empty bottles of wine, wilted salads that no one is eating, to the great annoyance of Lise the salad expert, we are still talking about my father, even though he’s not here. Life may have totally deprived him of power, but he’s still here, dominating us as an ancient oak dominates a landscape. The children are talking about a ghost that haunts the house.
    Buddhist or Medical, we all want the same thing. We want to think that our parents are facing their deaths comfortably and peacefully. A simple enough desire, you’d think, one capable of inciting a groundswell of support, as the progressives would say, of uniting us at least as much as it divides us. William is getting impatient. We’re not joining in the Christmas spirit. One of the sisters makes an effort, tearing herself away from the conversation and making oohing and aahing sounds over an ugly doll.
    The Medicals are addicted to crisp, cutting-edge science. They have their detailed reports, their lab tests, their cookbooks specifically designed for people with weak hearts and rigid Parkinson’s, their neurologists, whose Mercedes-Benzes proudly proclaim their medical prowess. The Buddhists, of whom I am one (but only in this case), are not impressed with science, though they have nothing with which to match it from some other, equally solid and seated body of knowledge. We search the Net desperately, but come up empty-handed. We have no argument to make except that of the heart, or perhaps that of sentiment. Neither our affection nor our compassion makes us more human or more generous. We ask ourselves if the happiness of one parent is not the happiness of both. We quite simply refuse to believe that the beginning of death is the end of life. The Medicals, who have just as much heart as the Buddhists, oppose our position with a thousand little tangible tragedies, each of which is perceived as a tragedy for our mother. They are not afraid of choosing between dead and living futures. At the same time, they do not hesitate to impose life on those who are already well on their way to death.
    The Medicals have opted for our mother. They’ve decided to save her life because of our two parents, she is the furthest from death. Our father must therefore die politely and quietly, so as not to cause our mother further pain.
    Yes, I understand my mother’s anguish, when she sees her husband, headstrong and arrogant as an adolescent who has just smoked a joint, leave the house to go for a walk, step onto an icy sidewalk and fall flat on his back after two seconds. Watching in desperation from the window, she sees the various parts of his anatomy trying to re-form themselves into a body. She sees that body lying on the icy sidewalk, not moving. That’s what she sees from the window. I’m not making this up. She is the one who told me about it. She couldn’t get him up by herself, so she rubbed his back, keeping him warm, encouraging him. She had to wait for someone to come along, or ring a neighbour’s doorbell, in order to get this shell of her former husband back on his feet. I also understand her weariness, her fedupness, when she saw him knocking himself out, shouting, getting more and more discouraged when he could no longer decipher bank statements or bills that made less and less sense to him, but which he nevertheless insisted on trying to take care of. For my birthday this past summer he sent me a cheque for twenty-five dollars, which I didn’t get around to cashing. He had written down all of his expenses, all the electricity bills, the gas bills, the telephone and cable bills, and when he added everything up there was an extra twenty-five dollars in his account. He recalculated, reverified, went over