Mother, Charmin and Dr. Kevorkian

Editor's Note: This is a poignant and very moving short story. It gives dignity to the characters along with respect and clearly... love.


Copyright 2004 by Jeff Lassen


It was like every day. The help-line phone rang constantly. One call after another, claimants wanting to know where their benefit checks were. Look up their account in the computer. Give them the answers they didn’t want to hear. Their claim card was not received, not signed, no benefits left in their account. Their check had been mailed on the usual day. Each expected that his call would magically cause his check to issue from his phone right then. Eight hours of unhappy callers one after another.

“Jason, you have a call on Connie’s line.”

I almost never got personal calls at work. But I knew what this one must be. I went into the boss’s office.

“Jason?”

“Yes, Creigh, it’s me.”

“Jason. Mom died this morning, about an hour ago. They just called me from the nursing home a little while ago. They said she just went quietly in her sleep after breakfast. She’s at peace now, Jase!”

“Thanks, Creigh. Bye.”

There didn’t seem to be anything else to say. It was not unexpected. She had been starving herself to death for the past three weeks, refusing to take any food at all. She had been tired of fighting.

I quietly returned to my desk. I stared at and through my computer screen. The phone continued to ring unheard, the calls answered by my many co-workers.

She’d had fifteen good years after she had first been diagnosed. She’d had a double radical mastectomy, radiation and chemo-therapy, and had remained cancer-free for fifteen years.

Then the cancer had returned. She had fought valiantly for about five years. Then she had given up. At the end her body was riddled with cancer. She had just had her seventieth birthday a month and a half ago.

I was sitting quietly at my desk with tears streaming down my face.

“Jason, are you alright?” asked my supervisor, Bob. “Was it your mother?”

“Yes. I’ll be alright.”

“Why don’t you go home, Jason?”

“No! I think I need to be here right now. I just need a little time, Bob. Life goes on.”

We had both lived in Carson City, Nevada. I visited her often, especially on Friday nights. She was still working, in Reno, and drove the 30 miles each way. On Friday she would do her food shopping on the way home from work. But she was too exhausted to carry her few bags of groceries upstairs to her apartment. She would bring the frozen stuff, leaving the rest in the trunk of her car. No matter how many times I offered, she would not call me for help. Fiercely independent to the end! So I just showed up on Friday evenings, took her keys and checked her trunk, bringing up whatever remained.

About four months ago on a Friday night we were playing Yahtze. Mother and I had always played games. She was a ruthless competitor. But not very good at most of the games she had taught me. I was beating her at gin rummy by the time I was eight years old. Still, she enjoyed our games.

But she couldn’t seem to concentrate that night. I asked her what was the matter. She told me that she had had an accident on the way home that night. She had run over a curb and bent the rim of her tire, deflating it. She had to wait for AAA to come fix it so she could come home. I talked to her a bit about the circumstance and she couldn’t remember how it happened.

This was the third little accident in the past couple of months. I had been increasingly worried by her driving. I told her that it wasn’t good for her to be driving anymore if she couldn’t remember things. It wasn’t safe. She said what did it matter, she was going to die soon anyway. But there are other people to consider. You can’t endanger everyone else on the road just because you are going to die soon. Oh yeah, she responded.

I called my brother in Reno. I told him what had happened, that I was going to take Mother’s car keys, and he should come down the next day and we should all talk it over.

She was furious! How was she going to get to work? I told her that we would get things worked out between all of us.


Mother moved in with Creigh and his family that weekend. We all had a few visits with her various doctors in the next week. We hadn’t realized just how bad things really were. She had so many little tumors in her brain that it was amazing that she functioned as well as she did. Most of her organs were involved. But, strangely enough, nothing in her lungs. A heavy smoker for fifty years, and no cancer in the lungs.

A week later she quit her job. Her doctors had advised her to give up work six months before. She said it was just too much of a problem for Creigh and Emma to drive her there and back.

I saw more of my brother in the next few months than I had in the past several years. I visited one day every weekend. Mother and I continued to play games, when she was able to concentrate. But that became less and less possible to her. I watched her steadily decline.

One day we were playing Uno. She kept putting the wrong cards down. When I corrected her, she looked ashamed of herself. Mother, it’s alright. We don’t have to play. But she wanted to continue. And she concentrated fiercely. You could see the strain on her face through the wrinkles.

Let me have a puff of your pipe, she asked. She loved the smell of my pipe. But you’re not supposed to be smoking, I said. What’s the difference, she replied. I’ll be dead of the brain tumors before the tobacco can get me. Oh how she savored that single puff of smoke!

A few weeks before her birthday I was there when my brother and his wife returned from the shopping. He walked in with a huge package of toilet tissue.

Mother looked pleadingly at my brother. Please can't I have Charmin in my bathroom? Her body seemed to sag nearer to her impending death when he said that he'd just bought 24 rolls of toilet tissue at a wonderful bargain. The creases and folds around her eyes seemed to deepen until she seemed almost to disappear within them. With a deep sigh - either of despair or resignation - she croaked But that is so rough! Waiting to die, having to live in her son's home for her final days, could she not have one part of her body which was not painful? Slowly turning to gaze at me her eyes rolled upwards and I feared she was going to die at that instant.


Mother, I said, if you want Charmin you shall have it. Glaring defiantly at my overly frugal brother, I added If you won't buy it for her, I shall!

Mother's eyes slowly rolled down again, and the creases and folds of her face smoothed somewhat as she beamed at me with a broad smile, vacant of teeth but no less bright, and her eyes sparkled with glee.

The week of her birthday she was too ill to accompany me to dinner. I had always taken my mother out for a lobster dinner to celebrate her birthday, and for mine a week before. We had both been looking forward to it. But she had been getting more chemo and was not able to eat anything. We already had reservations, so my brother went with me. When we returned, Mother demanded to sniff my beard and mustache as that was as close as she was ever going to get to lobster again. She sniffed and smiled with joy as she nuzzled into my beard.

A few weeks later she had to be hospitalized to stabilize some of her medication. I think this was the point at which she really gave up. She had a living will which forbid any extraordinary measures. She made sure everybody knew it. Now she refused to take any medication except that for relieving pain. My brother, his wife - who was a nurse - and I were all there in her room with her major attending physician and her cancer doctor. They were trying to explain why it was important that she should continue to take her medication. She said that she didn’t want any more medication. She was going to die, and they couldn’t stop it. They said that they would have to administer it through the IV if she wouldn’t take it willingly. At this mother ripped the IV feed from her arm and told them she wanted her other doctor. What other doctor was that, they wanted to know. She had so many different doctors. Dr. Kevorkian, she replied. I had to laugh in spite of the situation.

Since she wouldn’t take medication they couldn’t justify keeping her in the hospital. She was moved to a nursing home, an intensive care sort of terminal facility. She went downhill very fast. She refused to eat. She took only water and a little fruit juice.

I visited every other day for the month she was there. At first she would ask me to not let them force her to eat. I talked with the staff, and they did bring her a tray three times a day, but nobody forced her to do anything. As if anyone could! She was not getting any medication except for pain. And she was in more and more pain as time went on.

Gradually she communicated less and less. When she did speak, it was often garbled, but sometimes an extremely forceful and lucid sentence would ensue. I tended to communicate more with her. I would hold her feeble hand and tell her that I loved her. I would assure her that her wishes were being followed. And I gradually came to accept that she had a right to die rather than to continue to fight this terrible battle.

Mother had long made known her wishes that she have no funeral, no memorial, nothing like that. She didn’t want anybody visiting her grave or keeping her ashes on their mantle. She had donated her body to the local medical college. She had often said there was so much wrong with her that the good medical students could make better use of her body than any undertaker. And it would save us the cost of a trash bag. Her words!

Two days before I had sat at her bedside holding her hand. She had not responded at all in the half hour I was there. At first she appeared asleep. Then her eyes opened, but still she didn’t move or try to speak. As I was prating on about nothing she suddenly squeezed my hand strongly. She said very clearly, No funeral! She looked at me with the clearest eyes I had seen in her face for months. No, Mother, no funeral. Just as you have always wished. With that she smiled, and closed her eyes again. She slept, and I left.

Goodbye, mother! May God bless you.

The help-line phone was ringing. Automatically, I reached for it. “Benefits. May I help you?”

KWABENA'S HUNT

The young man glowed with pride as he stood beside the antelope hanging outside his house. He was clad only in cutoffs and sandals. Young muscles rippling, he aimed his rifle at his prize and snarled fiercely. I took his picture and he grinned.

I was visiting the village of my wife's uncle. When the young man had returned from his hunt I was called to record the event on film. Everyone always wanted his picture taken.

Kwabena stood beside me now, eyes downcast, brow furrowed with thought. His wife Ama was speaking to the boy's mother and plainly envious of her. There would be red meat in that family's pot tonight while we had eaten only chicken and fish since my arrival. When I looked around again Kwabena had slunk away.

We were the same age but Kwabena appeared older. We had become friends at once although we were not able to communicate except through an interpreter. He had no English at all and my Twi was limited to "Good morning" and "Thank you".

My young nephew Kwaku appeared as we were on the path back. "Uncle Kwabena says to get ready. You are going to the forest." I hurried to the house to put on boots and get the rest of my camera equipment. I had been looking forward to this opportunity.

Carrying the heavy camera bag, I was drenched with sweat long before we reached the forest. The heat and high humidity were oppressive even though the path through the cocoa plantation was shaded. The sweet odor of cocoa in flower and rotting vegetation was almost overpowering.

Beside me strode Kwabena. He was dressed in sneakers, a pair of slacks which were more patches and tears than anything else, and a short-sleeved shirt which had lost its buttons and collar. Over his shoulder was an ancient percussion-cap muzzle-loader and around his neck hung a pouch with packets of powder, shot and caps. At his belt hung a large knife. A small, sinewy man, his stride was shorter than mine and I had to slow my pace to remain beside him.

Finally we reached the edge of the forest and a path leading into it but Kwabena began to turn aside. By hand signals to supplement the English which I knew he didn't understand, I made known that I wanted to enter the forest to take pictures. Reluctantly he led the way.

The path was more of a tunnel with vegetation close on both sides and overhead. I had to stoop to walk along behind Uncle Kwabena. He gazed apprehensively in all directions, rifle held at the ready. Twice he halted and motioned to return along the path the way he had come. The third time he refused to continue, edged around me in the narrow passage and began retracing our steps. I was disappointed. It was too dark for photography, even if I could have seen anything in the dense growth. But I could see clearly that Kwabena was uncomfortable in the forest.


A cocoa farmer, not a hunter, he was more at ease when we regained the edge of the plantation. Walking along the border between the forest and the groves, Kwabena constantly looked up into the forest canopy. What could he be watching for, I wondered. Panther, I guessed, but I had no idea of the local wildlife.

Suddenly he stopped and pointed into a tree with a finger to his lips. He raised and aimed his rifle in a most unusual manner. Rather than hold the stock against his shoulder he braced it against the heel of his left hand and held the grip with his right. As he squeezed the trigger there was a resounding boom and a billow of smoke.

It was plain he had missed. His smile disappeared and his head hung. Again, by signs, I asked what he had shot at, and he managed to convey a squirrel. The way he pantomimed the bushy tail would have made me laugh if he had not been looking so dejected.

We had come quite a distance from the path so Kwabena cut through the groves towards home. I felt sad for my usually happy friend as I followed him between the trees. His shoulders slumped and his eyes were on the ground. The rifle trailed casually from his hand. I would have liked to console him, but without a common language it was impossible.

Suddenly he was happy again, grinning and pointing, and talking rapidly in Twi. There under a cocoa tree was the largest mushroom I had ever seen. The crown, fluted like a fancy parasol, was about a foot in diameter. Kwabena seemed overjoyed although I couldn't understand why. First he used his knife to cut a forked branch, then carefully cut through the mushroom's stalk which was as thick as my ankle. Handing me the rifle, he mounted the huge fungus on his stick and hoisted it to his shoulder. Of course he wanted his picture taken.

We returned to the village in a triumphal procession, Kwabena striding proudly with his find. As we neared his house the children joined us. One ran ahead to tell Ama. As we entered the compound she came forward and accepted it from him, smiling broadly. Young Kwaku informed me that this species of mushroom was prized for its good flavor and its medicinal qualities. One this large was extremely rare. Our soup would be flavored with a portion of it this evening.

It was amazing to see the change in Kwabena. He seemed as happy and proud as the boy with the antelope. Everyone in the village had to come see the mushroom and congratulate him. And Ama was soon seen returning with a shoulder of antelope received in trade for half of the mushroom.

That evening around the fire Kwabena recounted the tale of his hunt for one and all and Kwaku translated for me. I did not dispute the many differences from the trip I had experienced. It was enough that my friend had no shame now, and that we would have red meat in our pot tomorrow.