The Truth About Butterflies: A Memoir Read Online Free Page A

few months earlier, and we talked about letting go. 
    I was unable
to give Nicole a definitive answer on when to let go.  ButI do
believe there’s a place on the brink of suffering where all of one’s emotions
gather like great philosophers.  They reason amongst themselves on the best
course of action.  But it is only when love stands up and decides when and
where the line must be drawn that all of the other emotions fall silent in
agreement because they know that love is never wrong.  It’s in that moment of
pure love that decisions and actions become clear.
    “I don’t
think you’ll know until the moment comes,” I told her, “but when it does come,
you’ll know for sure.” 
    Nicole
always trusted me to make the right decisions, but it was her own words that
would help me when the time came.  “Ma, don’t let me go until you’re satisfied
in your own heart that I won’t wake up.  Don’t listen to the doctors either;
they’ve been trying to kill me since I was little.”  From the time she was nine
years old and first given an insulin needle, Nicole believed that doctors had
it in for her.  I asked the nurse when Dr. Akwari would be coming.  “She’ll be
in later this evening, six or seven-ish.  Would you like to see her?”  I
nodded.
    The social
worker came and gave me a list of funeral homes.  There were over 40 of them on
the list.  Only one was familiar; it was a funeral home about a mile from my
home.  I called the number, and the funeral director said he’d fax over a list
of services.  When I got the list, I went down it with a pencil, very much like
I would a grocery list, placing a check mark by the services I would need.
    Early that
evening, Eunice’s niece Tye, her husband Jay, and their two girls came for a
visit.  We laughed and talked and alternated between watching TV and watching the
children play.  I wanted to scream and beat the walls, but instead I smiled and
asked Jay for the recipe to his steamed asparagus he’d fixed at Christmas.  
Wanting to play hardball, he said an outright gift of the recipe was
impossible, but he’d be willing to barter for my cranberry cobbler recipe.  I
looked him up and down.  “My cobbler is easier to make than you think.” 
    “So is my
asparagus,” he shot back.  
    We narrowed
our eyes, glared at each other, sneered a little.  No recipes were swapped that
night, but I would’ve given him my recipe on a silver platter if it meant that
Nicole would wake up.  We both knew that cobbler and asparagus had nothing to
do with our Nicole, but we used the mock standoff as a temporary release from
the stifling reality that hovered over us.
    During our
visit Dr. Akwari came in, and I asked to speak with her out in the atrium.  Tye
insisted that the doctor and I stay in the room while they waited in the
atrium, but my not wanting to talk in the room had nothing to do with them and
everything to do with Nicole.  I would try not to, but I knew I would cry when
I started talking to the doctor.  I didn’t want Nicole to hear my crying or
sense my anguish.  It would serve only to make things more difficult for her. 
    She had often
told me that she feared for me when I was home alone.  “What if someone breaks
in, and I’m not there to protect you?”  She’d asked.  On the many occasions
that she was hospitalized, she would call me at odd hours of the night to see
if I was okay.  “Did you lock the back door?  Keep my baseball bat near your
bed.”
    Regardless
of her need to feel like my guardian, Nicole always trusted me to make the
right decisions no matter how difficult the situation, and so I sat down with
Dr. Akwari and made the decision because, as Nicole had admonished, I was
satisfied in my own heart, without any external pressure, that the time was
right.
    I’m sure Dr.
Akwari knew why I wanted to talk to her.  Even so, she didn’t bring it up or
even suggest it.  She just sat quietly, held my hand, and listened