Miriam Toews - All My Puny Sorrows

Really?

Really! he said. Thankfully your mother pulled the plug when she did. Well, not literally pulled the plug, but one day she just decided to let him die.

What?

We were all taking turns suctioning him — his lungs, I mean. Your mom, Tina, all the kids and their various spouses. It was the end. He was finally dying. His lungs were filling up and we were all doing shifts, suctioning. Do you know what that is?

Well, not really. But I can imagine.

Nine years in bed and before that oh, the energy of that man, the life in him. Yoma! (Plautdietsch expression loosely translated to “Damn!”) It was your mom’s turn to be with him and it was just the two of them. It was late. He said Helena, Helena, that was his dead wife’s name, your grandmother, I’m coming, I’m coming—

Wait — what? He thought he saw grandma?

Yes. Not thought. He did see her! So your mom made an executive decision, that’s like her eh? These Loewen girls are spark plugs. She didn’t suction him. She was a nurse then, she’d been trained. She could have done it of course but she decided not to. His lungs filled up with fluid and she held his hand and said the things we say in times like that and let him go. Best thing she could have done for him. Hard, Yoli (he said something in Plautdietsch looking up at the ceiling, a reverie, a memory), but still.

My uncle was such a big guy. He sat on my mom’s flowered couch and cried for his tiny lion-hearted Tina, his spark plug, and I sat next to him with my hand on his leg.

My mother and I were on a plane. Before we left I talked with Elf. She didn’t talk at all. I told her things would be okay, truly, that I needed her, that I understood her, that I loved her, that I’d miss her, that I’d be back for her, that being together in Toronto for a while would be amazing, that Nora was really looking forward to it too, that I understood that just because she didn’t want to live didn’t mean that she necessarily wanted to die it’s just that that’s sort of how that one goes, that she wanted to die the way she’d lived, with grace and dignity, that I needed her to be patient, to fight a little longer, to hold on, to know she was loved, to know I wanted to help her, that I would help her, that I needed to do some stuff, that mom and I had to go to Aunt Tina’s funeral in Vancouver, that I’d be back, that she’d stay with me in Toronto for a while, a total break, that Nic was here now, back in Winnipeg, that he’d see her every day, that I had to go, that I had to know she’d be okay while I was gone, that I would bow down before her suffering with compassion, that she could control her life, that I understood that pain is sometimes psychic, not only physical, that she wanted nothing more than to end it and to sleep forever, that for her life was over but that for me it was still ongoing and that an aspect of it was trying to save her, that the notion of saving her was one that we didn’t agree on, that I was willing to do whatever she wanted me to do but only if it was absolutely true that there were no other doors to find, to push against or storm because if there were I’d break every bone in my body running up against that fucking door repeatedly, over and over and over and over. Will you eat something? I asked. Will you talk?

She put her arms up like a baby waking up from nap time and wanting to be held and I fell into them and bawled.

On the way out of the psych ward I stopped at the nurses’ desk. I put my hands on the counter, palms up like I was ready to have them nailed to the Formica. Then I begged. Please, I said, don’t let her go. The nurses, two of them in sky-blue uniforms and ponytails, swivelled around from their computers and looked at me. Please don’t let her go, I said again.

Sorry, said the nurse closer to me. Let who go?

My sister, I said. Elfrieda Von Riesen.

Why would we let her go? said the nurse. Is she due to be discharged?

No, I said. She’s not. I’m asking you please don’t believe her if she tells you she’s fine because she’ll be very convincing and you’ll think okay, let’s free up a bed, let’s let this one go, but I’m asking you to please not do that.

Sorry, said the nurse. You are?

I’m her sister!

Oh right, said the nurse. You mentioned that. She looked at her files. The other nurse didn’t look away from her computer screen. Why would we let her go? said the nurse again. Did her doctor tell her she’d be leaving?

No, I said. I was gripping the counter like the guy on the cliff in Deliverance . No, he didn’t. I’m just trying to get reassurance. I’m worried that you will let her go because she will ask to be let go and she will seem very normal, very sane.

I guess that’s for the doctor to decide, said the nurse.

Okay, I said, but the thing is she wants to die and if you let her go I’m afraid she’ll kill herself even if she tells you in a very convincing way that she won’t kill herself. I could feel my heart throbbing. I was mumbling now, looking down, dribbling words onto the front of my shirt, nobody could really hear me and they strained to make out what I was saying.

Sorry, I beg your pardon? said the nurse. I think the doctor will be the one to determine whether she’s okay to leave.

Just then Janice came around the corner from the rec room and our eyes met and I said oh, Janice! Janice! I’m just asking for Elf not to be let go while I’m gone. I’ll be back to take her home with me to Toronto for a few weeks or months and I’m just asking that—

I was coughing, I couldn’t speak. Janice was holding a guitar. She laid it on the counter and came to where I was standing. She put her hand on one of mine. She looked me squarely in the eye.

Don’t worry, she said, the way she is, and considering what she’s been through, there’s no way we’re letting her go home any time soon and certainly not without a plan in place. We don’t know what that will be yet, a long-term facility or ongoing outpatient visits to psychiatry, but we promise we won’t let her go home until we have follow-up care in place.

Okay, I said. Okay. I touched the guitar, its smooth golden surface.

Yoli, she said, I think it’s a great idea for Elf to go to Toronto for a while. I thanked her and she let go of my hand and it wasn’t completely like falling from a high ledge.

I fell asleep and woke up flying through blue skies past soft white clouds, my mother’s head on my shoulder, my bag open and spilling its contents all over my lap. I felt my forehead, a thin layer of sweat. Everything was oozing out of my body now, blood, sweat and tears, like a fire sale, everything had to go, even all the junk in my bag was bursting out like nothing I had or was could contain another thing. My mom woke up and for a while stared straight ahead. Then she said huh, and turned to look at me for a second like she was trying to remember where she was and who I was. And I thought, oh stay this way, don’t remember. Stay this way. But she snapped out of her post-nap fogginess and said hey Yoli, sometimes we just have to be brave, that’s it. One time when my mother was a social worker for Children’s Aid she had to apprehend a baby from its meth-head sixteen-year-old mother. The girl attacked my mom in her office and broke my mom’s glasses so they left a deep cut on the bridge of her nose and the jagged scar still shines white against her summer tan. I stroked the little scar and my mother took my hand away from her nose and held it in her own.

I agree, mom. But how brave, exactly? I asked.

Well, said my mom, at least as brave as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

So mom …

Yes, Yolandi? She smiled and put her head closer to mine so she could hear me speak.

I think it would be really great if Elf came to stay with me in Toronto for a while when she gets out of the hospital.