what if?

What if I’d told them to keep all the machines on? What if your heart had recovered, as there was a possibility it would, but your brain never did, as was a guarantee? What if I’d decided to keep you here anyway? What if we still had you here with us right now, unmoving and unblinking in a hospital bed? What if, instead of crying every day over your loss, we could be curled up beside your nearly-lifeless body, pretending you were still with us? We could read you stories, tell you about our day, imagine you were still the same daddy and husband even if you could never communicate with us again, even if all the tests showed you couldn’t hear or see us or know we were there? Would it have been better for the kids to at least have a daddy here on earth to see and touch and talk to? Would it have caused them less trauma if they could see they had a daddy, even if they still wouldn’t get to know the real you?

I made the choice I did because I knew it was what you would have wanted, but what if I’d gotten it wrong? What if you would have rather stayed in limbo, or wherever you went as soon as your heart stopped beating that first time? They say you never came back after that. They kept resuscitating, kept bringing you back until there was nothing else to do, and all along there was no activity in your brain. You were a shell of yourself by the time they were wheeling you into the ambulance. I should have known the way the police and EMTs looked at me with those sad, pitying eyes what to expect. But I thought you’d just fallen, I thought you’d be back soon. But you never came back. Not until you were ashes in a granite box. 

I’d have taken care of your near-lifeless body for the rest of my life. I hope you know that. I’d have sat by your side every waking moment. I’d have washed your body, learned how to use your feeding tube. I’d have loved you and talked to you and remained your wife. It’s not the life you would have wanted for yourself or your kids, not the life you would have wanted for me, but maybe I wouldn’t have cared. Maybe it would have been better. Maybe having you like that would’ve been better than not having you at all. I’ll never know. But I’ll wonder about it often, hoping I made the right choice.