The First Goodbye
Words can’t express the bittersweet joy I felt when the doctor handed over the prescription for the medications I would need to ingest. A huge part of me was hoping I’d wake up and all of this would be some horrible dream, but with each step Rowan and I took out of the doctor’s office, the more reality set in. This was it. After all my asking and begging, I was finally being given the chance to die with dignity.
“Do you want to go grab lunch?” Rowan asks, probably, much like me, unsure of what we’re supposed to do now.
“That sounds good,” I answer and smile sweetly. He’s the one thing I don’t want to leave behind. If there were any chance my cancer-riddled body would recover, I’d fight it tooth and nail, but there comes a time we have to face the facts—every second that ticks by, I’m closer to death. More than me wanting to die with some dignity, I want to be remembered for who I am versus who I’d become. I can’t fathom being anyone’s burden while my body slips away from me. It’s not fair to me or Rowan.
Throughout lunch, we ate quietly, neither one of us spoke, unsure of what to even say. I mean, what can you say? What’s the topic of conversation? What day do you want to die? What room? What do you wanna wear? On the car ride home, I figured it was a good time to open the lines of communication and discuss the specifics with Rowan.
“I’d like to wait until our family can come to town before I do it. What do you think?”
“I think they’d like that a lot. Give them a chance to say goodbye,” Rowan responds with a slight crack in his voice.
I reach across the console and grab his hand. “It’s going to be okay, I promise,” I reassure him, even though I’m not sure my words are true. Sure, it’ll be fine for me, I won’t be here, but for him, what was life going to be like for the one person in the world I loved more than anything else?
“I just want you to be happy. Whatever that means, I’ll make it happen. You’re my world, Charlie. There’s no fixing it like before. This is what’s best for you.”
“Have I told you how much I love you?”
“You have, but if you could keep telling me, I’d appreciate it.”
A pang of guilt hits me hard in the gut. He’s savoring each time I profess my love for him because a time will come when he won’t hear it anymore and he’s been burning each time to memory to dig out in a time he’ll need it most.
*****
A week later, my mom, dad, Sheena, and Rowan’s parents and brother all land in Portland and make their way to our house. While Rowan is picking them up, I drive to the pharmacy to pick up the lethal prescription I’ve waited to fill, just in case by some grand design a miracle happened, which obviously it didn’t or I wouldn’t be here.
The pharmacist looks at me with sad, sympathetic eyes as he hands over the white paper bag filled with the medication that will end my life. As I sign my name to the electronic pad at the register, I look up at him and smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re very brave,” he says in a telling tone. “There was a time when this wasn’t a possibility.”
“I’m a blessed woman. I’ve lived a great life, with a great love. Unfortunately, my body didn’t want to cooperate. But what’s done is done. Thank you for your kind words, sir.”
“You’ll be in my prayers.”
“And you in mine. Thanks again.”
I stifle a sniffle as my eyes start to water, make my way out of the store, and drive back to the house just in time to be greeted by the loving arms of my favorite people in the world.
“Oh, my sweet girl,” my mom wails as I step out of the car. She nearly knocks me clean off my feet when she flies into my arms.
“None of that, Momma. This is a happy day,” I respond as I hug her tightly. “It’s a happy day.”
“Get off of her, honey, the girl can’t breathe,” my dad gripes as he steals me away from the grips of his wife to hug me even tighter.
“Daddy, you’re gonna break me,” I laugh while he twirls me around the same way he did when I was a little girl.
“You’ve lost some weight, Charlie,” he chastises, and I didn’t feel it was right to tell him that’s kind of what cancer does to you. When everything hurts, it’s hard to eat anything.
“I picked out this pretty little number I’d like to wear at my funeral and I bought it a size too small. Can’t be popping out of the seams,” I morbidly joke, hoping he’ll find it funny, and when he chuckles a laugh that’s all dad and male bravado front, it makes me feel like a weight has been lifted off my chest. This is what I need, what I crave—to be remembered for my awkward sense of humor in inappropriate situations. That’s what makes me, me.
Throughout the rest of the day, our families spend time telling their favorite stories, even a few of Rowan when he was a pesky teenager. I may have fallen in love with him before I even knew what love truly was, but some of these tales I’ve never heard, and it feels great to smile and take those memories with me where I’m going.
The doctor had warned that I should take the medication on an empty stomach, so while everyone enjoyed a meal I prepared just for them, I sat back and watched in awe at my amazing family. Each one of them eating, laughing, talking animatedly … it was like any other day, which was exactly what I wanted my last memory of them to be like. They were doing an excellent job at not making a big deal of what was going to happen.
“Rowan, baby, could you grab me the nausea meds, please?” I ask as Rowan gets off the couch to put his plate in the sink.
He doesn’t answer verbally, but his solemn nod tells me what he wants to say. He’s going to do it because there’ll never been a time where he doesn’t get me what I need, but he realizes our time is almost up. The nausea meds are the first to go down, and everything else will follow. He knows I’m starting the process while everyone’s milling about the living room and making small talk, unaware of what I’m doing. He knows this is the beginning of the end. The first step.
After he deposits the small pill in my hand, I chug it back with a swallow of water and excuse myself to the bathroom for a quick shower. As I stand under the spray, I hear the door close just as quickly as it had opened.
“Hello?” I call out to see who’s in the bathroom with me.
“It’s just me,” Sheena answers. “Are you showering so you smell heavenly when you go to Heaven?”
Jokes. Inappropriate jokes. Perfect fucking timing, best friend. This is exactly what I need today. Thank God for friends like Sheena.
“You’re an asshole,” I laugh, and rinse the soap from my hair. “I’m not sold on what the afterlife is, but I don’t want to go there with greasy hair.”
“You’re so vain. I knew there was a reason you were my best friend.”
“But that doesn’t answer why you’re in here with me.”
“Can’t a bitch just wanna hang out with her bestest for a few more minutes without being bothered by everyone else? Damn,” she groans, and I smile.
Sheena was with me before Rowan, when I hated my parents as a teenager, when I got cancer the first time, when I got married, when I couldn’t have babies. She may have moved across the country, but Sheena has been my constant in a very inconsistent world. She’s my person.
“I love you,” I whisper as the tears start to fall. Before I know what’s happening, Sheena climbs into the shower with me, fully clothed, and grabs onto my frail body and just holds me in her arms, not willing to let go. Which is fine by me, as I wrap my arms around her. I’m not ready, either. I don’t think anyone’s ever ready for this. Who wants to leave the greatest people in the world? Certainly not me.
“I’m going to miss you so fucking much. Fuck cancer, dude.”
“I know,” I mutter, pulling back slightly and wiping the wet hair that had fallen across her tear-stricken face. “I’m always here, though. You know that, right?” I pat her chest and let my hand rest there for a moment.
“Seriously, Charlie? I’m in here being all sad my best friend’s gonna be dead soon and you wanna feel me up in the shower?” Our laughter echoes off the tiles. Apparently, we’re loud enough that Rowan enters the bathroom a few moments later.
“Should I be upset that I have two girls in my shower and one’s fully clothed?” he jokes, and Sheena and I can’t stop ourselves from laughing so insanely hard. Then we start crying again, but not sad tears, the happy kind. The kind where your stomach hurts and you can’t catch your breath because the moment is exactly perfect.
“Can you take this peeping Tom out of here?” I teasingly ask Rowan and then kiss Sheena on the cheek. “I’m going to watch out for you, dude. I’ll make sure you’re screwing all the right guys.”
“You better, ‘cause if I run across one more dud, I’m gonna have to switch to the ladies.”
Rowan escorts a drenched Sheena out of the bathroom and allows me to have my last guilty pleasure a few minutes longer. The water starts to run cold and my knees are trembling so badly, I know I won’t be able to make it out of the tub alone. I start to call for Rowan, but he’s already standing there waiting with an open robe.
“It’s like you can read my mind.” I smile genuinely up at him as he holds my hand and helps me out of the shower. Carefully, he wraps me in the terrycloth and walks me to the bed, where I sit next to the pajamas I picked out a week ago. Nothing says going out in a blaze of glory like wearing a piece of sexy lingerie.
“Do you mind sending Sheena back in here?”
“You sure? I can help with whatever you need, babe.”
“Yeah, I have one last surprise for you. Go grab the hooker.”
With a crooked grin, Rowan slips out of the bedroom and Sheena peeks her head inside the door a few moments later. “You’re dressed this time, right? Not trying to have your husband up my ass because I’m with is naked wife.”
“No, I’m not dressed, that’s what you’re here for, so get in here already.”
“Oh, we’re to that part,” she mutters with a sad tone.
“You remember what I want?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Without another word, Sheena gets along with my last request from her. Slowly, almost methodically, she pulls my makeup bag out of the nightstand drawer and goes to work covering the dark circles under my eyes and adding a little definition to my sunken cheeks. There was a time not too long ago where she would fight to do my makeup—slut me up a bit, as she would say—but this time is clearly different. As she touches the brush to the pallet of eyeshadow, I notice she chooses the neutral tones I would have put on myself, the same as when she picks the shade of lipstick. A tear slips from my eye as I realize she isn’t making me look like her as she usually would have done, but she’s enhancing the features Rowan loves the most.
After my makeup’s intact, she carefully runs a brush through my frail hair, drying it on low heat. She remembers we can’t run a flat iron or curling iron through my locks, so she uses the rounded brush to add some natural waves. The last thing to do before she’ll rejoin the family is to help me into my floor-length nightgown with a slit to the thigh and lace around the bust. Once dressed, I scoot up the bed and try a few poses, inciting a few catcalls from Sheena before I’m ready for Rowan again.
“I’m always here,” I whisper as Sheena tucks a lock of hair behind my ear.
“You better be, dude. Thick and thin to the bitter end, mama. It’s you and me.”
“You and me.”
Sheena wraps me in her arms, allowing a few tears from both of our eyes, we quickly straighten out, and with a kiss on the cheek, she’s out the door and I hear Rowan walking down the hall.
My family—they’ll understand. I’ve been saying my goodbyes for a week now. I don’t want a room full of people, but I do want them nearby. Not just for my comfort but for Rowan … after. My mom knows when I kissed her cheek earlier, that was my last goodbye. My dad, when I let him twirl me around the living room—for the third time—and I placed my lips on his cheek, I let them sit a little longer than normal … that was my last goodbye for him. Rowan’s parents, they understand, too. All I want now is my man. Our final moments together.
I grab the remote to the stereo and cue up the song that reminds me of him more than any other song ever written. As the words of “When I’m with You” by Sheriff pour softly out of the speakers, Rowan enters the room, and his smile is all I need in this exact moment.
“You look more beautiful than the day I met you,” he mutters, climbing into bed next to me.
“And you’re more handsome. I couldn’t picture loving anything more than I love you, Rowan. You’ve made my life so perfect. You’ve made me so perfect.”
“I’m gonna miss you so much, Charlie. God, I’m going to miss you.” His head drops to my shoulder, and I feel him smelling my hair as his tears stream down my chest.
“Don’t, babe. Please don’t. I need this. You need this. One more happy day. One more first,” I cry, wanting him to stop and not wanting him to stop. Never wanting this to end.
“But this is the last first. There won’t be any more.”
“Baby, you’re going to have so many firsts, you don’t even know it yet. You’re going to have everything you’ve ever wanted and live an amazing life. A man is nothing without a woman to love him, and baby, I love you enough for this lifetime and my next. There’s never going to be a second where I’m not in your heart. Please believe me.”
“I don’t want you to go, Char. I want to be selfish and beg you to stay.”
“And I could. I could stop this right now, not take the pills, but one way or another, I’m going. I’m so blessed to have the choice of going before I become a burden, before I’m too sick to walk on my own, before I can’t tell you how much I love you. I’m choosing to give us both the freedom of that, Rowan. I’m doing this for both of us. I want you to remember me like this. Happy, awkward, and so in love with you I can barely breathe. I want you to remember my voice. I want you to remember how it feels to hold me before I wither away to nothing and without machines breathing for me. I want you to remember me.”
“I know you’re right. I know you’re going to go. I just wish it wasn’t you. I want longer. I want a full life with you, babe. I want our life, not something I have to rebuild once you’re gone.”
“Are you going to be okay? Because I won’t do it, Rowan. I won’t, I swear. I’m ready, but if you’re not, we can wait.”
Rowan hesitates for a second before reaching to his side of the bed and grabbing the bottles of medication and a glass of water. “I promised you there’d be nothing I wouldn’t do to make you happy. I swore in front of God, our family, and friends that I’d be here to give you your heart’s desires. I will fulfil my promises.”
Placing the capsules in my hand, he follows the doctor’s directions and allows me to take them by myself, without any assistance from him, and I do. One by one, I swallow the pills until none are left. At that point, we look into each other’s eyes and know soon, my heart will stop beating, my lungs will stop breathing, and I’ll no longer be in pain. Within an hour, I’ll no longer be here on this earth and I’ll be leaving him alone.
That’s when I hear the animated voices coming from the living room and know, deep in my heart, he’ll never be truly alone. He’ll have comfort from everyone who loves him as much as they love me. He won’t go through this by himself. He may want to, but he’ll never have to. He’ll have people to hold him and help him move on. He’ll have our people.
Rowan takes the glass and sets it on the table beside me and pulls me to his chest. “The first day I met you, I knew you’d be my wife.”
“The first day I met you, I was so scared. You were exactly what I wanted even when I didn’t know I wanted it.”
“You’re my perfect, Charlotte.”
“You should thank Sheena for that one. Had it not been for her persistence, I would have never met you at that diner. I would have sat at home and wondered what would have happened. Actually, most of my life, she was the one pushing me outside my comfort zone. Remember that when she does dumb shit and makes you want to punch her … that’s what I do, anyway.”
It only takes fifteen minutes before my eyes start getting heavy. I try to hold them open, but with each passing moment, they weigh too much and all I can do is close them.
“Do you feel that?” I ask Rowan while he strokes my hair.
“What, babe?”
“Unconditional love. I can feel it. Inside these four walls, there’s so much unconditional love, it’s inspiring. I know there’s more for me, Rowan. I’ve been loved by so many people, I know I’m not done yet. Maybe done on Earth, but I have more to do out there.”
“I do feel it. And you’re right. You’re destined for great things, and in my soul, I know you’ve got so much more to accomplish. Watch out for me while you’re up there.”
“Make me a promise,” I whisper, hearing my own voice come out slurred and slow.
“Always.”
“Don’t be alone. Find someone to love you the way I do.”
“That’s gonna be hard, babe, but I’ll do my best,” he lies, and I know I’ve already made the right choice. My last request, my last thing to do on this planet. It’s not happened yet, but it will, and my heart soars with elated emotions. He won’t want to try, but he will … because he’ll give me my heart’s desires. He’s my perfect.
“I’m sleepy.”
“Go on and rest, babe. I’ll see you soon enough. We’ll be together again. I promise.” As he finishes his declaration, I feel his lips on my forehead and I think I smile. This is it. I’m too tired. Too weary. This is the best ending in the history of endings.
In the end, I hope he knows how truly and honestly loved he is. I pray there’s more after this and that his very last promise to me will come true because as I drift further and further away, I see a lifetime waiting for us in Heaven, where we’ll have babies and a home and all the things my sickness stole from me.
Everything gets darker and darker around me until I’m surrounded by black, and before I can start to get scared, a dim light starts to get brighter. It’s true. There is a Heaven. I’m being pulled to the gates and I know this life is over, only for me to begin again someplace where cancer isn’t a thing, and neither is heartbreak. A place where I can watch my Rowan find a woman, fall in love, and live the life he never got with me because of the cancer. It flashes … his life, not mine … he’s going to be just fine.
And he’ll find a woman who will love him the way I did. Widower or not, he’s going to be happy. In turn, it makes me so unbelievably happy, I run toward that light and embrace all the glory waiting for me on the other side.