A Memoir by Macey Sidlasky

You didn’t ask us to have power of attorney, but we have it. You didn’t know, months ago, that we would sign off on forms that are now tacked to your charts, your files, a warning to all that cardiopulmonary resuscitation should not be attempted. I want to tell you, but I know you would not understand. 

I wonder what your death certificate will say: is it considered suicide when someone signs a DNR? 

We signed it for you. Am I murdering my mother? 

Now I am at a Starbucks across the street from your hospital with a cake pop in one hand and a cold brew in the other. I cannot taste either as I chew and swallow, as I take out my phone and answer the questions from relatives and neighbors and friends. 

They ask why we have signed a DNR, and I ask how they know this, and they yell and scream and say we do not have the power, but technically we do. Back then, when you were mobile and able to see, you always said you had places to go to, people to meet, life to live. I think of what you would think of yourself now: the ticks of seizures radiating across screens, of curled hands and swollen legs that stay tucked under white hospital sheets. 

You don’t know what she would want, they tell me, and I feel it, then. The bonelessness of my body, of the weight of this decision. The Starbucks barista has a nice voice, a kind voice, and I try to listen to her as she says, “have a good day,” but family members scream at me, and eventually I just hang up. I sit there, silent. My phone buzzes. 

I wish it was you, telling me I have done the right thing. 

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Macey Sidlasky graduated with her MFA from the University of South Florida in 2020. Since then, she has been hosting book club with high schoolers, which just means she teaches English to fifteen-year-olds and hopes they nerd out as much as she does over literary devices and character development. Her writing can be found in The Pinch, Red Rock Review, and elsewhere.