Just then, a doctor walks up. “Are you Mr. Starr?”
I reply, “Yes.”
She reaches her hand out to shake mine. “I’m Doctor Avery. I’m the primary doctor on your wife’s case.”
“How is she?”
She takes a deep breath and says, “I’m so sorry, sir, but your wife has been in a coma for the last four days. We have checked every day for any type of brain activity, and I’m not seeing anything that would give us the slightest ounce of hope. The machines are keeping your wife alive. It’s clear she would not be able to sustain without them.”
My legs go weak, and I feel as if I am about to black out. I walk over to a chair and sit. I place my elbows on my knees, bury my head in my hands, and cry.
This can’t be true. It just can’t. God, please let me turn the clock back. Let me tell her not to go to Starbucks and go straight home. Let me fix this!
The entire time I was traveling to get back to her, I kept telling myself this was something minor, that she will be okay. Then fear would set in, and I would pray that whatever was going on she would get through it. I kept trying to give myself any inkling of hope, but there is nothing. I wipe the tears from my face and look up at the doctor. “When can I see her?”
“In a few minutes. I will come and let you know.” As the doctor walks away, my mom and dad, along with Jayden’s dad, walk up.
They all give me a hug and say they are sorry. I can tell they have been crying. “I guess you all know the prognosis?” I ask.
Jayden’s dad has tears in his eyes and says, “Yes, the doctor told us yesterday when we arrived.”
I’m looking at the man who has loved her almost as much as I have. The man who lost his wife many years ago still stands strong. He’s teary-eyed, but he is not falling apart like I am.
I stand and give them all another hug. “Thank you all for being here.”
As I hug my mother, she says, “We will always be here for you.”
I was lucky to grow up with such great parents. Jayden too. Her dad couldn’t have been a better father-in-law, and I know if her mom had lived, she would have been the best mother-in-law.
The doctor walks back toward us and says, “You can see her now.”
I look at my parents.
“Go, be alone with your wife. We’ll all come and see her in a little bit,” her dad says.
I follow the doctor into her room. The sight before me leaves me speechless. Her head is bandaged, her arm is in a sling, and a huge cast is on her leg, which is being held up by a chain. She has a yellowish tone to her skin, which is a definitive sign of liver failure. On the side of the bed is a dialysis machine, which tells me her kidneys aren’t functioning either. I guess if the brain isn’t there to tell the organs to keep working, they start to fail.
I walk up to the side of her bed, sit in the chair, and reach for her hand. Her hand is cold, and if I didn’t know the machines are keeping her alive and blood is still pumping through her body, I would think she already passed.
“Jayden, my love, my life, I got here as soon as I could.” I don’t know if she can hear me, but there are things I need to say, things she needs to hear. “Darling, you have made my life everything it is today. Ever since I met you on the school steps that first day of seventh grade, you have been a huge part of my life—and obviously a part I could not live without. I never thought we would end like this. I mean, when you’re happy and in love, you think you have all the time in the world. But that just isn’t the case, is it?” Tears fall down my cheeks and drip onto the sheets of her bed. I wipe my eyes and clear my throat. “I wish I could turn the clock back. I wish I could tell you to leave five minutes earlier than you did that day. Or maybe if you drank your coffee at Starbucks and not have left to take it with you… Anything that would have changed you being on the interstate at that specific time.
“This should be me. I should be the one lying in this bed, not you. All the deployments and dangerous situations I have been in over the years, it was always my fear it would be me who would fall victim to some accident, and I would have to leave you. As a serviceman, I never thought it would be you.”
I don’t think she can’t hear me, and I know even though her heart is beating and the machine is breathing for her, she is truly gone.
I step out of her room and go back to my parents. I look directly at her dad and say, “Harold, I don’t know what do to.” I break down in tears. “Dr. Avery says she can’t live without the machines.”
Jayden’s dad says, “Jake, it is up to you. But there is one thing I know for a fact, and I am sure you do too. My daughter would not want to be kept alive by a machine when there is no chance of her ever coming off it.”
He’s right.
“I know you are right, but I feel like I am killing her.” I can’t stop my tears.
“Jake, she is already gone,” Harold says, and in that moment, I know in my heart what I have to do.
“I need to talk to the doctor, spend some time with her. I’d like you all to be there when they do, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course,” Harold says. “We will all be there with you.”
