Liam Carnahan
Ask me how my mother died, and I’ll tell you it was an infection.
Ask me how my mother died, and I’ll tell you it was inaction. We made a promise to her before the surgery, but we could have told the doctors to pump her full of antibiotics, pull her back from the brink again. Instead we told them to make her comfortable.
Ask me how my mother died, and I’ll tell you it was because she could not swallow properly after the accident. I went down into the bowels of the hospital with her for the swallow test. I sat with the doctor watching the x-ray live on a small television screen, trying to read the results, trying to read her face as she read the results. I could see the liquid the nurse poured into Mom’s mouth, in the negative of the x-ray, black and viscous like oil. “It tastes like sugar water,” the doctor said, which made me think of when I was a kid, and Mom taught me how to pull the filament out of honeysuckle and catch the drop of nectar on my tongue. So much was riding on that mouthful of liquid. If she could swallow it, she’d be discharged to rehab. If not, she’d need a feeding tube, and another surgery that could kill her.
Ask me how my mother died, and I’ll tell you it was a blood clot at the top of her spine, at the C3 and C5 vertebrae. Tell that to anyone who knows anything about the spine and watch them wince. It took everything from her, except her mind and her voice. It took her ability to move, to swallow, to live.
Ask me how my mother died, and I’ll tell you what was written on the death certificate: blunt force trauma. A description that makes my mother’s death seem like one of the murders we used to watch on Dateline NBC and 20/20, when she insisted on stroking my hair while I rested on her lap, falling asleep while Diane Sawyer pieced together a crime. But my mother did not die of homicide. There was no murder weapon, unless you count a pane of glass, a few feet of asphalt.
Ask me how my mother died, I’ll tell you: It was her passion for used furniture. She was never satisfied with a piece of furniture for more than a few years—sofas and wardrobes had mere weeks in our home before they were hauled away and replaced with something better she found at a yardsale, or on the side of the road with a giant FREE sign on it, and later, on Facebook Marketplace. That’s where she found the lawn furniture of her dreams, which was too bulky to fit in her Prius.
Ask me how my mother died, and I’ll tell you it could have been the rental truck. It was old and junky, it was a bargain. It was a windy day and a windy road and the wicker furniture might have acted like a sail, catching a rogue gust and lifting the car in the air for just a moment before flipping it three times.
Ask me how my mother died, and I’ll tell you it may have been a large cup of tea in one hand, filled to the brim with ice, and her other hand fiddling with the radio or opening a text from me. Maybe the rental truck was innocent all along.
Ask me how my mother died, and I’ll tell you it was her stubborn nature. She died because she didn’t take my warnings about seatbelt safety seriously. A few weeks before the accident, after breakfast at a greasy diner, I refused to pull out of the parking lot until she buckled up. It led to our first argument in years, our last argument ever. My mother died because I didn’t warn her forcefully enough. I didn’t slash her tires. I didn’t lay down in front of her car and refuse to let her drive until she wore her seatbelt. I didn’t call the police and report a maniac driving around town unbuckled. I didn’t offer to drive up from Boston and pick up the furniture on my way. I didn’t hide her keys.
Ask me how my mother died, and I’ll tell you it was me, I did it, I killed her. The day before the surgery from which she would never wake up, she called me to her bedside. It took her ten minutes to say her piece, because her breathing was so labored and shallow. In a weak voice I didn’t recognize, she asked, “Are you mad at me? About the seatbelt?” I told her, “No, of course not. I’m only mad at the situation. I could not be mad at you—never you.” She nodded slightly, the only movement she could still make, and closed her eyes. There was a small smile on her lips, a look of painful satisfaction, of a decision made.
Ask me how my mother died, and I’ll tell you: Because I gave her permission.
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Liam Carnahan is a freelance writer and editor based in Boston. His work has appeared in Metapsychosis journal, and this essay was awarded 8th place in the Writer’s Digest 94th Annual Writing Competition. He is currently finishing his debut memoir, My Tiny Monster, about domestic abuse during the Covid pandemic. You can learn more about Liam at LiamCarnahan.com.