I had just walked in the door from work when I heard the phone ring. “Probably Claire calling to tell me her ride left without her,” I said to myself as I reached for the phone. “Hello?”
“Hello, this is Doctor Allen at St. Luke’s Hospital. Am I speaking to Adelyn Carlisle?”
Slightly frightened, I forced myself to say, “Yes, this is she.”
“Is your husband’s name Ian Carlisle?”
Slowly reaching a point of paranoia, I responded, “Yes, is something wrong?”
“The most I can tell you over the phone is that the ambulance just brought him in they and took him into the Intensive Care Unit. I think you should come down here immediately.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Okay, thank you for calling. I’ll be right there.” The longest twenty minutes of my life followed that phone call.
I pulled into the parking lot, not even acknowledging the fact that I just did ninety-five miles an hour to get here. As I turned off the ignition, I had to sit for a moment to calm myself down. Looking upon my tear-stained reflection in the rearview mirror, I then understood why they always tell you not to drive when you’re in a panicked situation. Wiping the tears from my eyes, I exited the car and made my way to the hospital doors. St. Luke’s Hospital was eleven stories high and took up about half of the block.
Walking in the door, I felt like I was walking an endless road, and that the desk to the emergency room was not getting any closer. Finally, after feeling like I had floated there, I composed myself enough to speak to the nurse. “Hi, I’m Adelyn Carlisle. Doctor Allen called me about twenty minutes ago and he told me that my husband was just admitted, and to come down right away.”
The nurse’s name was Greta. A middle-aged African-American, she stood at about five foot three and was “pleasantly plump” so to say. “Yes, they just took him into ICU. They’re trying to revive him right now.”
Feeling like I had entered a parallel universe, it took every nerve in my body to keep stable. “Revive him? What happened?”
“From what the person who hit him told us, she was texting while driving and was only glancing down for a second. When she looked up, she saw your husband and tried as hard as she could to stop, but unfortunately, the car struck him on his left side and he flipped over the hood of the car.”
As much as I tried to restrain them from falling from my eyes, the tears started flowing so fast that by the time I caught them off my cheek, there were that many more to welcome my delicate finger. “Can I see him?”
“Not just yet. As soon they get him stabilized and into a room, we’ll let you know.”
“Okay. I’ll be in the waiting room.” I walked away in awe of what had just happened.
I’ve had one nervous instinct throughout my life, and it only came out when I had to tell someone something unpleasant, or when I had a complicated decision to make. I was pacing in circles, walking three circles to my left, then three to my right, back and forth, until I could figure out what to say and how to say it.
Before I could even call my kids to let them know what had happened, Greta came back and told me that they had stabilized Ian, but he was still in a coma.
I ran faster than a marathon track star to room 208, thinking that no matter how fast I ran, I wouldn’t get to him fast enough. Finally reaching the room, I fell to my knees at the sight of my battered husband lying in the hospital bed. Greta was right behind me to catch me, or else I would have fallen right to the floor, but at that point I wouldn’t have cared. Ian’s head was wrapped in blood-soaked gauze, his left eye was black and blue, and his leg was in a cast, elevated about a foot off of the bed. It was the most painful sight I ever had to endure.
♦♦♦♦♦
Hours turned into days, days turned into weeks, and before I knew it, it had been three months since the accident and Ian still hadn’t woken up from his coma. I still had hope, though, that he would pull through this, that our love was strong enough to withstand anything. Claire and Sean couldn’t bring themselves to see him that much. They came with me once a week, some weeks not at all. I couldn’t help but to be by his bedside for at least an hour or two every day. I would talk to him, tell him things that had happened that day.
“You know, Claire asked me today if I’d tell her the story of how we met and fell in love. It was really hard for me to tell her because I can’t talk about a memory with you without the tears approaching.” It was a lot easier to recall the memories than it was to tell my daughter about them.
♦♦♦♦♦
I can still remember that night, just like it was yesterday. I was heading down to a local concert in Napa to celebrate my friend Layla’s birthday. I had just turned twenty-one, so I was very excited to finally able to go out with her. When I got there, Layla spotted me almost instantly.
“Hey Adelyn! Over here!” Layla shouted with a slight slur to her voice. She was always a lightweight.
“Some party, huh? Where is everyone?” I asked, wondering what kind of man candy she had invited for me that night. Layla was always trying to set me up with someone every time I turned around.
“Well, this is Martin, one of the guys I work with. Ian, George and George’s girlfriend Abby are on their way. You’ll meet them all when they get here.”
“All right sounds good. I’m gonna go grab a beer, I’ll be right back.” I said with a sly smirk on my face, proud of the fact that I could legally go into a beer tent. By the time I came back, Layla informed me that the other three were there, but I had to drink my beer real fast because they were at a bar down the street. I just gave her the “are you kidding me” look while thinking, “Oh God, this is gonna spark a great night.”
After chugging one of the most disgusting beverages I’ve ever drank in my life, we headed over to Murphy’s Irish Pub on First Street East, about a block and half away from where the concert was. That’s where life as I knew it changed. I saw a very attractive man standing in front of me. He was about five foot seven, blonde hair and blue-green eyes, a little on the skinny side, but definitely a sight that caught my eye. “Hi, I’m Adelyn.”
“Nice to meet you Adelyn, I’m Ian. Can I get you a drink?”
I didn’t want to pass this up, even though my head was still racked from drinking that beer so fast. So reluctantly I said, “Sure, I’ll have a screwdriver,” handing him my ID, knowing that the bartender would ask, “I just turned twenty-one two weeks ago.” I said with an innocent smile.
As the night carried on, I felt something that I thought I couldn’t feel. I had met someone who was genuinely interested in what I had to say, someone who looked me in the eyes when he was talking to me, someone who was not afraid to be himself, instead of trying to show off to impress me. Everything fell into place from that night on.
♦♦♦♦♦
The next year and half went by so fast, it felt like it had come up on us too soon, but at the same time it felt as if we had been together our entire lives. I still remember one of the cheesiest, yet completely romantic, nights of my life.
It was just another Saturday night, just like any other had been in the past year and a half. We were out to dinner at a local restaurant called Elements, which was just a few blocks away from Murphy’s. We walked that night with it being such a beautiful evening. The stars were in perfect alignment and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. There was a light breeze along the pier, but not enough to reach where we were. We had just come upon Murphy’s when Ian looked down at the ground.
“Aw shit, my shoe is untied.” He usually wore Converse shoes, but that night he wore a pair of slip-ons. By the time I could realize this and turn around to say, “Wait a minute…” he was already down on one knee with the ring box open.
“Adelyn, I’ve been telling you every day for the last year and a half that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Now I want to make it official. Will you do me the honor of being my wife?”
By the time he was done speaking, my eyes were so full of tears that I couldn’t even see straight. “Yes, of course I will. Nothing would make me happier.”
A year later, we were married on Newport Beach, right on the Pacific Ocean. The sky was filled with five different shades of blue, with just a few clouds in the sky, which was enough to make the day perfect. We spent our honeymoon in Ireland, the most wonderful experience of our lives.
♦♦♦♦♦
Two years later, we were blessed with two gifts from heaven. Our twins, Claire Elizabeth and Sean Michael, were welcomed into our family with open hearts and open arms. After nine months of doctor visits and hormone rages, the soccer players in my belly were finally here. Claire had the most beautiful brown eyes I had ever seen, Sean had gorgeous blue eyes that would melt your heart away, and they both had the blonde hair of their Mommy and Daddy. That was the first time I had seen Ian cry.
♦♦♦♦♦
My thoughts and memories were interrupted when Greta told me that Doctor Allen needed to speak with me right away.
“Mrs. Carlisle, as you know, we’ve been running many tests on your husband to see if there’s any indication he’ll wake up. We’ve checked his brain activity and nothing has changed since the accident. At this point, we can no longer care for him, as he’s been here for three months. That’s the longest we can hold a patient. The burdening choice we have to leave you with is whether or not you want to have him transferred to a full-time facility or whether you just want to let him go.”
At that moment, my heart sunk to my toes. How can you even ask me to make a choice like that? This is my husband we’re talking about. This is the love of my life, the man I have loved for twenty years and the father of my children. I could never live with myself if I terminated his life. “Can I have a few days to think about it?”
“Of course you can, but you should know that the absolute latest we can keep him here is next Friday. So we need your decision by then.”
As he left me alone with Ian, I looked back at the hospital bed. With that I was forced to remind myself of the conversation that Ian and I had after his father passed away.
♦♦♦♦♦
At age seventy-five, Ian’s dad had died of a heart attack, his third one in two years. His mother was devastated, as any woman who has just lost her husband should be. He couldn’t leave her side for days, knowing that she needed him just as much as he needed her. Following that, Ian and I realized that life is too short. We started discussing our will and what actions we would want taken in the event that something happened to us. Ian’s words resounded in my head for days.
“If I’m ever in a coma or a vegetative state, spare yourself and me the misery and just pull the plug. I don’t want you to put yourself and the kids through something like that in high hopes that maybe, just maybe, I’ll wake up. That’s no way to live your life.”
♦♦♦♦♦
Thinking back on that conversation, I looked over at the hospital bed once again. He looked so innocent and helpless. I couldn’t help but to cry at the thought that I would have to live my life without him. I was torn between granting his final wish or keeping him vegetated solely for the fact that I couldn’t bring myself to let him go. I thought it would be best to see what Claire and Sean thought I should do. Who was I kidding? No sixteen-year-old kid wanted to lose a parent. It was the hardest decision I would ever make.
I went home to talk to Claire and Sean. As I expected, they were not very happy with the choice I had been presented with.
“Mom, you can't do this! Give him more time!” Claire shouted at me in hysterics. She was definitely a Daddy's girl, and was on the verge of hatred toward me if I did this.
Sean was just sat there in silence for a few minutes, trying to hide the tears that were running down his face. “I'll never forgive you if you do this,” his voice was so quiet and melancholy, as if that was the only thing he could think of to see.
After a week of contemplating my choices, keeping Ian’s wishes in the back of my mind, after arguing with Claire and Sean about the situation, I finally made my decision. Hoping that I never had to make a decision like this again, I made my way to St. Luke’s to talk to Doctor Allen.
♦♦♦♦♦
“Hi, Adelyn. How are you doing?” Greta greets me at the front desk. Her tone is more melancholy than usual, knowing that I have just made the hardest decision of my life.
I can’t help but to burst into tears as Greta pulls me into her arms. “I’m still not sure that this is what I should do. I know this is what Ian wants, but this is not what I want, and it’s definitely not what my kids want.”
Doctor Allen approached me as I pull myself away from Greta’s hold. “Hi, Mrs. Carlisle. Are your children coming today?”
“No, they’re too upset with me. They want me to keep him alive, hoping that one day he’ll wake up. No matter how much I tried to explain to them that this is what he wanted, they still argued with me not to do it.”
Walking toward the room, I feel like there is a surround sound stereo hooked up to my heart. I can feel my heart shattering into a million and one pieces. My stomach is twisted into a pretzel.
By the time we get to the room, I feel all the color flush from my face. My kids are sitting at their father's bedside, looking at me with the most disdainful look I've ever seen.
“Daddy? It's me, Claire. You have to wake up. We need you so much right now. I need you. There's only so much that Mom can do. Please wake up.” The brokenhearted look on my daughter's face is enough to break mine even more.
“Dad, it's Sean. Claire's right, you gotta wake up. Who's gonna give me advice on girls and play lacrosse with me? We really need our father, so please wake up.” I can tell my son is trying to be tough, but the expression in his eyes is enough to tell me otherwise. Okay, my turn now. As helpless as he had been looking, there was a look of contentment to his face. Now he would be content in Heaven.
“Ian, I am giving you your final wish and letting you go. I don’t want to do this. In fact, this is the last thing I want to do. I don’t know if Claire and Sean will ever forgive me for this, but I really hope they do.” I look over at them to see the same look they had when I walked in, now mixed with heartache and torture. “I vowed that if it ever came to this, I would respect your final wishes, so I’ll stick to my word and do this for you. I love you with all my heart. I always have and I always will. Goodbye my love, I’ll see you in Heaven.” The tears are running down my face faster than I ever knew possible. This is killing me inside and all I want to do was fall to the floor and not get up. I look at Doctor Allen and, unable to speak through all of the tears, nod my head to indicate my readiness.
As Doctor Allen turns off the life support machine, I kneel down next to Ian’s bedside, with my kids right beside me, and I hold his hand with an intense flow of tears that are completely unstoppable. The heart monitor goes from a steady beat to a slower beat, then finally to a flat line.
I am in shell shock when the machine starts beeping steadily again. I look up at Doctor Allen to see why he turned the machine back on, just to find out that he hadn’t. I look over at Ian to see his eyes fluttering open. He all of a sudden starts coughing. I can’t believe it for everything in my body that my love has just woken up out of a three-month coma.
“Oh my God! Ian you’re awake! I can’t believe it! This is the miracle I’ve prayed for!” I feel all the color come back to my face and the light in my eyes return.
“I-I-I’m sorry, but who are you?”
