Just Breathe Again - Mia Villano Page 0,7

of this coma. This is difficult to say to you. His organs are beginning to fail. I’m afraid you have a decision to make.”

She hung her head down and looked at the ground. “I know.”

“We can keep him alive like this for a while. The end results are not good. He won’t have a normal life again, and possibly never leave a hospital. I don’t think Vince would want that life if he had a choice. Nobody wants to die. I have not met a patient happy to die or one that would want to live poorly either. This is a tough decision, Mrs. Franklin,” he said.

Jeannie knew what had to be done. She asked Marsha to keep the kids that night. She needed to be alone in order to accept the inevitable and make the best decision for Vince. The night passed in waves of screaming, crying, and sleeping in the darkness of her room alone. She laid in bed and screamed his name, hoping maybe somehow his soul would hear her. When she couldn’t scream anymore, she cried. She cried from the depths of her being. Why? If he would have waited a minute or two longer to leave, this wouldn’t have happened. If he would have not gone, he would still be with them. And out of total despair, Jeannie wished she would have agreed to go too so that she could die along with him.

Even though he couldn’t speak, he could still breathe. She would lie next to him in the hospital with her head on his chest and listen to his beating heart. She talked to him and read him motorcycle magazines out loud. She told him how the kids were doing, what the weather was like. To Jeannie, if he was breathing, he was her husband, and life flowed in his body. She didn’t want to give up on him. If for some miracle he did survive, he would be a vegetable and have no real life. He would not be able to speak, walk, or take care of himself. She had to consider him and what quality of life he had being hooked up to a machine. Jeannie knew Vince would have been pissed to be dependent on people for everything. She had to let him go and let a part of herself die. Stopping the machines that kept Vince alive was the hardest thing she ever had to do. She couldn’t comprehend the fact she was going to end her husband’s life in a few hours. They wouldn’t grow old together, share milestones in their children’s lives, or watch their grandchildren sitting on the front porch. Was she making the right decision? What if he came out of his coma? What if by some miracle he survived? She stayed up crying and pacing the floor until the sun rose the next morning. She screamed for God to give her a sign. She begged for anything to tell her what she was about to do was the right thing. As the morning light broke through the dark bedroom, no sign came.

That morning, they went to the hospital to do the inevitable. Lydia was so upset, Jeannie had to pull over and let her throw up twice. A horrible morning she wouldn’t want to relive. A morning she couldn’t get out of her head. With a shaky hand and tears streaming down her face, she signed the papers stopping her husband’s heart from beating. She would feel the last and final beat early one rainy morning. She talked to him before they did turn off the machines and told him how much she loved him, how much she was going to miss him, and what a wonderful husband and father he had been. The kids said goodbye and poor Lydia hung on to him as tight as possible, begging him to stand up. John and Marsha were there with her. John had to pull Lydia off her father and take her out of the room screaming and crying.

“No, Daddy. Please wake up. Please don’t leave us,” she cried. Michael hung onto Jeannie and screamed.

“Mommy, don’t let them take Daddy. Please make them stop. You promised he would be okay. Mommy stop this.” That morning was an unspeakable walk through hells door. The kids were led out of the room and it was Jeannie, Vince, and the nurse when the equipment to keep him alive silenced forever. Jeannie kept her hand on his chest and