I made a promise tonight

Tammy called me. She had her blood draw on Wednesday and as soon as the results came in on Friday they called and told her to come in on Monday. She wasn't supposed to go in until next Friday. Mom's birthday.

She's been in bed for 2 weeks. Very dizzy, keeps falling. She passed out driving on Thursday. She has cuts on her hands and feet that are not healing. her paind is horrible. Horrible. Its like she is being tortured. I hear it in her voice, I can hear it when a wave of pain hits her. The panting, the tears, the strain.

She said, "I must have done something to deserve this. I must have done something really wrong for me to suffer so, but I can't imagine what it is." I told her she is a wonderful, vibrant, kind woman and she does not deserve this kind of suffering.

"I just want to be with Mom," she said. "I'm ready. I know it would be so much better where she is. I can't do this any more."

Again. She said it to me again. And I flashed to her agony and the rocking and the vomiting and the way it made me feel watching her suffer so. And I flashed to grandmother, and her agony, the cancer eating away at her, the radiation therapy that irradiated too deeply to her small intestine and caused the hemorrhaging. I remember holding her in my arms as she vomited blood into a waste basked because the chin-bin they gave me was full. I remember how much it hurt her, me holding her. And I remember my rage at her suffering. And I feel a similar rage about Tammy.

I believe she can get better. I told her. I pumped every ounce of conviction into my voice. "I believe you can get better." I made her promise to let her doc check her in to the hospital. To get in ontravenous feeding, to get back on the morphine for the pain. To comply with the doctors and the nurses, to do exactly what they tell her to do.

"Ok, I'll go, I'll do this. But you have to promise me something," she said. "You have to promise me that if after a month its still this bad, you will let me go be with Mom."

More tears. I started shaking. My mind raced. In a month, in a month, she will be better, I know she will, my monkey-brain chattered. I took a deep breath. I remembered that one of the reasons why I live in Oregon is because of the Death with Dignity Act. That I continue to live here because this is the only State in the country were a person can have physician-assisted suicide. That it coincides with my conviction that no human being should have to suffer agony that we would never force a dog to suffer.

I took another deep breath. Reminded myself that I don't make promises I do not intend to keep. Reminded myself that even though I am convinced she can get better, if I promise this, she and I will both hold me to it.

I took another deep breath. Then made up my mind. I told her that if she goes to the hospital on Monday, and if she cooperates fully with her care for that month, and after a month, she still wants to die... then, I will help her go be with Mom.

And I broke down and cried and told her I believe she will get better, that the pain will get better, that when she gets on intravenous feeding her brain and body will get she needs to function and she will feel better and think more clearly and then she won't want to give up, that she will want to live. I told her it is selfish of me, I know to want her to live, because it just means she will suffer longer.

"But you promised," she whispered. She sounds like Marge Simpson. Her voice is almost gone. I figure she's been screaming in pain again.

"Yes, I promised."

I know she nodded. She said ok. She said she would do it.


We ended the call shortly afterwards, at 10:55. My hands are shaking and I'm still crying. But I'm better. I was feeling sorry for myself, looking up at the altar by my desk, all but asking Buddha "Why me? Why her?" And instead of the trite "All life is suffering" answer, a thought came to me. It made me catch my breath.

"I am fortunate." My heart pounded, and something shifted in me. Spontaneously, in the midst of such agony, I had a moment of meditative clarity. Centered, I breathed out. Slowly.

"I am fortunate." I said it to myself again, with more conviction this time, and half-wonderingly. A slow, deep breath. Blink. Still centered.

I am fortunate to have her for a sister. I am fortunate that she loves me and trusts me so. I am fortunate in the abundance of love in my life: my sisters, my friends. I am fortunate for the bowl of blueberries before me, and the bit of cream, too. I am fortunate in my abilities. I am fortunate, simply because I believe it is so.

It is a wonder... to feel this way, this... feeling like I have helium in my middle, so light, so centered. No fear. Fearless. I have gotten a promise from her to really follow her Dr's advice. And in return I have promised--what I have promised. And it is a good deal. It feels good. It feels Right. Like the eightfold path Right.

I made a promise tonight. I hope circumstances will improve and it will not be necessary for me to keep it.

But I made a promise tonight, and keep it, I will.