Photo by Gevin Allanwood on Unsplash
The Question
Creative Nonfiction
A white sheet draped the young woman’s lower body; wires and lines snaked out from beneath it. A pink Hello Kitty tee-shirt, lay discarded on a nearby chair; cut off by emergency medical technicians who tried to restart her heart. Residue of gel from the shocking paddles glistened on her chest. The cardiac monitor sat dark and silent.
Her parents and my husband and I stood in this private room, away from the surrounding chaos of the ER. The staff had provided this seclusion; the four of us were all physicians and I was a familiar presence as the Chief Medical Examiner investigating sudden and unexpected deaths.
Thirty minutes earlier, the girl’s father, a close family friend, had called our home.
“Anna’s here. At the hospital. Please come,” he had said.
My husband and I had rushed there not knowing what awaited us.
In the sequestered area, we watched as our friend, a middle-aged Latino, paced along one wall. Thick black hair stood in all directions on his head, as if he had run his fingers wildly through it. A mis-buttoned, blue-striped shirt hung over his jeans, one tail drooping longer. Glasses sat askew on his face; bedroom slippers adorned his feet.
His partner, Anna’s other father, positioned himself at the head of the stretcher. He slumped, chin to chest, his hands and forehead on the side rail. Wisps of curly black hair surrounded a central bald spot that I’d never noticed before. He startled as I touched his shoulder, then turned to grip me in a tight hug.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. The words sank into the hushed space. He stepped back wanting me to examine his daughter.
Remnants of mascara and copper shadow framed her brown eyes. Gently, I parted the lids revealing dilated pupils. Foamy bubbles had dried on the lips which were purple compared to the pale of her cheeks. Long thick hair cascaded over her shoulders. A barcoded medical band encircled the right wrist like a bracelet from a weekend concert. Petite feet, clothed in white socks with little pompoms at the heels, peeked out at the end of the cot. She was 21 years old, the same age as my eldest son.
The only sign of trauma was on the side of her left forearm near the hand––a tiny dot. The surrounding blue hue of the skin emphasized its presence. Peering closely, I saw clotted blood at the center of the puncture. This identified the wound as the site of the fatal injection, a sign of recent intravenous drug use. A syringe had been found next to her.
A tap on the door caught our attention. I looked at the parents, who nodded simultaneously.
“Come in,” I said.
A nurse in blue scrubs stepped hesitantly inside. She handed me a report with Anna’s name and hospital number printed across the top. The stat laboratory results confirmed that heroin and fentanyl had caused the death.
The parents stared expectantly at me as if this paper might be a reprieve –– evidence that it was not their only child lying dead on the hospital bed or that the condition might miraculously be reversed.
“This is the result of the drug test,” I said. My voice sounded tinny. “Anna died of an overdose of heroin that was laced with fentanyl.”
A scream escaped from one father, the man who had been pacing –– a primal sound that raised goosebumps on my skin. The partners turned to each other in an embrace that became a rocking motion, a dance of the bereaved. My husband moved closer to me. The grief gathered around us.
The heroin use wasn’t new information. Anna had struggled with this addiction, overdosed before, gone to rehab, gotten clean. The fentanyl was.
Anna joined 39 others dead from the same lethal cocktail that year in the county, and more than 15,000 in the country. The mixture, known on the streets as China White, TNT, or Poison, was gaining in popularity though it would be years before the CDC labelled these overdose deaths an epidemic. The combination of heroin and fentanyl, marketed for its intense euphoria, had a dangerous lethality that few users knew about. Anna marked the beginning of the cresting wave.
The men approached their daughter, breaking apart so that each could grasp one of her hands. The curly-haired father looked at me. I saw the question that formed in his eyes before he spoke.
“Did she suffer?” he said.
This was often asked of me by next-of-kin at death scenes no matter the cause––heart attacks, car crashes, hangings, shootings. Sometimes families held onto their query until we met in my office and discussed the autopsy report. Each loved one wanted to hear me say “No, they didn’t suffer.” I could rarely provide this answer. The best I might offer was that the death happened quickly.
In this case my reply should have been easy. Opiates caused respiration to cease, slowing down the breathing center of the brain until shutting it down completely, a gradual loss of consciousness. I might say “No, she didn’t suffer; she drifted off, went to sleep, and never woke up.”
“Did she suffer?” the other father asked as if I hadn’t heard. Everyone waited for my reply.
“No,” I said. “She didn’t suffer.” The words felt like a lie.
The Author
Mary Jumbelic is an author from Central New York, and the former chief medical examiner of Onondaga County. Performing thousands of autopsies in her career, she elaborates a strong voice for the deceased. She explores through creative non-fiction the imprint the dead have made on her humanity.
She has published with Rutgers University Press, Tortoise and Finch, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Vine Leaves Press, GFT Press, Women on Writing, Jelly Bucket, The Closed Eye Open, Prometheus Dreaming, Grapple Alley, Change Seven, Dreamers Creative Writing, Hektoen, Sterling Clack Clack, Free Spirit, Griffel, and Unleash Press. In 2014, her piece was selected for the top ten in the AARP/Huffington Post Memoir Writing Contest. In 2021, another was chosen in the top ten for the Tucson Literary Festival.
She teaches on-line courses on writing for the Downtown Writer’s Center of Syracuse, and is Assistant Editor for Stone Canoe.
Stories can be read on her blog, Final Words, at www.maryjumbelic.com. She can be reached at mjumbelic@gmail.com.
