A Lincoln Penny

Coins are interesting to me because they change hands so many times. I'm not a collector, but I have bought inexpensive coins from Ancient Egypt (think whose hands might have touched those) and coins from the Roman colony of Marcianopolis that lay at the dead bottom of the Black Sea for centuries, but must have bought food, wine, maybe scrolls, maybe animals as they changed hands back and forth, maybe sometimes owned by the conquering Latin speakers, at other times from those who spoke Greek, maybe paid for music lessons or theater tickets. This story is about a particular coin.

When I was a small boy, some sixty odd years ago, my father gave me a Lincoln penny. He told me I was not to think of it in any way as a lucky penny, but in a tight spot or at a low point I should take it out, read the motto, and take those words to heart.

My father was a sincere Christian, an imaginative, intelligent engineer who thought in practical terms. For various reasons, he had been let go in several jobs, or the companies he worked for had fallen on hard times, yet, as he sometimes said, he had never missed a paycheck. Somehow, every time, something new had turned up. And I was the beneficiary of his stable paychecks, despite the unstable employment.

I did not grow up to follow Christianity, but I am big on God. Probably I inherited that from him.

In the second half of the 1980s I was hired to teach at a medium-sized university in a Canadian city that was cold physically, and cold socially, a government town where people kept to themselves. Over our thirty years there we made only two friends. That's one friend per fifteen years. It was harder on my wife than on me. Her physical and emotional health suffered. My work was in the humanities, very specialized. I could not have changed jobs to another university unless someone wanted a professor of medieval musicology. And they didn't. I saw a great psychiatrist, but he moved back to Australia. His successor didn't help me much, and my wife had no reliable support, and only a small arena in which to exercise her own PhD. Not good.

The emotionally difficult atmosphere of the university combined with the stress of academics was hard on the students too. At that time, our counselling services were not fully developed, and at the same time, many students were shy about seeking counselling, even when they ran into big personal problems. Consequently they often brought their problems to my office.

I had no skills of that kind to help them with. I encouraged them to seek counselling, or ask their doctors to refer them to counselling, and I also had another small idea. I drove across the border to upstate New York and bought some rolls of Lincoln pennies. I would say something like "I think you should see a counsellor or ask your doctor to find you some counselling. In the mean time, take this penny," and I told them the story of my father and what he told me.

Soon there were a lot of Lincoln pennies in circulation in the university and students would ask other students in difficulty, "Did you see Prof. Merkley, and did he give you a penny?"

After a time, counselling services and expanded and students became more accustomed to them, so there was no need for more pennies.

Fast forward to my retirement, in 2016. My wife and I designed a new house and moved to a new city, the one I had grown up in and loved. She had severe osteo-arthritis, had needed a wheel chair for years, and we had high hopes for a new life, joint relacements, new friends, warmer weather. It to be was to be our fresh start after a difficult past.

On the third night in our new house my wife suffered a severe gall bladder attack. There was no choice. The organ had to come out. Days later came the pathologist's report. Cancer. Advanced. Our doctor, who has been my friend since the third grade, told us about this tumor. Very bad news. Probably she would not survive a year. My wife and I agreed this would be our biggest test of this lifetime.

From the university I knew two cancer researchers personally and I asked them about experimental treatments. But there were none at the stage that could be taken as "first-line treatments." One experiment might be available if the first-line treatment failed. My wife asked to start the chemotherapy right away.

Things rapidly went from bad to worse. The cancer cells had spread to the liver, there was no possible surgery, and there was now no cure, only a slim hope of slowing the disease down. The chemotherapy treatments were debilitating, and the assessment after the second round showed the disease rapidly worsening: involvement in every major organ of the body including the brain. There were ascites, big pockets of water that I drained every day, and they always filled back up again.

The first line treatment having failed, we determined to travel to the city where experimental treatments were undertaken. We hired a non-emergency ambulance, and barely, with a struggle and half an hour of effort, my wife managed to get onto the stretcher. We knew that she could qualify for the experimental program only if she seemed well enough, so I left her wheel chair at the door, and somehow, leaning on me, she made it to a chair in the doctor's office before he came in.

He said that there was one drug that might possibly be of some help. It was so new it did not have a name yet. He pointed out that given her weakened state (the chemo therapy and the diseased had almost destroyed her), he could not place her in the program because the treatment would probably be fatal. I reacted loudly to that, asked him then what was prognosis with no treatment? I suppose he had heard worse. People have explained to me since that legally he could not treat her.

I said every week in the New York Times this summer there has been an article on the miracle of immunotherapy. The doctor's resident said flatly, "There is no immunotherapy to treat cancer of the gall bladder." In the end the doctor said if she could improve her condition, get rid of the jaundice from her liver, we could come back.

The rest of the time is a blur to me. Hospital stays alternated with brief times at home, always deteriorating. She could not understand how to transfer from wheel chair to bed. Three times I had to call the Fire Department to help me get her off the floor and into her bed.

As soon as she was in her bed she wanted to be in her chair and I argued with her because it was so difficult. And once when she stepped out of bed I actually raised my voice, the only time in our entire marriage that I had done that. And I lived with the knowledge that I had yelled at my wife in late stage cancer.

The final hospitalization came soon, after about four months of disease. I stayed in her room around the clock, going home only to shower and feed the cats. I slept there in a folding chair. Not comfortable, but then I was not sleeping much anyway. My wife said whatever happened to give her a chance to come back, say from a coma.

And then she lost consciousness, and there was a lot of discussion of the "code status." Five doctors came to the room, one after another, asking me to sign an instruction not to intervene to save her life. I said no to each one. The fifth one asked me why. I explained that in our last conversation she wanted a chance.

The doctor was direct. He asked, "Are you saying that you are waiting for her to come back to consciousness so that you can discuss this with her? Do you not understand this disease? Do you not appreciate the state she is in? It would mean chest compression and being on an iron lung to buy a few hours of life. She will feel discomfort, pain from the broken ribs if we use chest compression. Do you want that? Do you really want that? I will come back at five o'clock and I will need to know your decision then." And he walked out of the room.

It hit me hard, very hard. Four and a half months of fighting the disease. Four and a half months of dwindling hope. Hope and Despair together. Eleven years of care-giving. Thirty-nine years, one month of marriage. One terrible decision staring me in the face.

And at that moment the phone rang. It was my childhood friend, my doctor. I burst into tears. He said it was not the doctors' first rodeo. If they gave that assessment, they were sure of it. I wept uncontrollably. He said she is an intellectual. Read to her. Read to her. And remember hearing is the last sense to go. So when you have to cry, leave the room, compose yourself, then come back and read some more.

I hung up and gave the instructions I had desperately been avoiding. They removed the drips and lines. Even the saline. But what about water? I asked. "I'm removing the water," the doctor said, "because it is pressing on her lungs, causing discomfort."

I sat frozen, thinking about what I had done. When I was overcome I left the room. I had a complicated book, but that did not make sense, even for the keen, top-flight intellectual that my wife was. Her brain, her mental faculties were surely not up for that. In the gift shop I found a volume of Harry Potter, and I read from that, hour after hour.

And then came the final night, the first of October. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep in that uncomfortable chair. I did not wake up even when the nurse came to check vitals, which she did regularly. I was awakened by a fire alarm. I looked at my wife. She was unconscious, but breathing regularly. I went to the door of the room to ask what to do. I was told we were to stay inside and close the door. After a few minutes the alarm went off. My wife was no longer breathing. If not for the alarm, I would have missed her death. I called the nurse. She confirmed what I knew. I was asked if I was able to drive myself home, and I said yes.

I cried. I talked to my cats. I left a message for my friend and he met me at a coffee shop. A contractor came to collect for services. I paid him. He said I looked down. I explained in half a sentence. He was incredulous. Then he pointed to his truck. His company was called "Master over Disaster." That was his advice to me. It did not sit well.

After a loved one dies there is a great deal to do. Phone calls, obituaries, arranging the memorial service. I had my favorite photos of her blown up for the occasion. Visitors, the event. I talked and played the piano. The funeral director told me that men do not have good social networks, and when they are widowed they often go nowhere, and fade away quickly. That didn't sound so bad, but I took his point.

Then the phone calls stopped. I stared out at an empty abyss of future time.

My university was offering a retirement seminar. I had never been to one, so I decided to attend. One of my graduate students said I could stay with her, her husband, and their two boys. I accepted. I made it through the two days with only a few tears, and in the evenings I read stories to the boys. The older one in particular, about 6 years old, I think, sat on my lap and listened for hours. My wife and I had talked of children, but given her health it was not realistic. One of her final disappointments was not "giving me a child." Her regret broke my heart, and I begged her not to think that way.

Reading those stories aloud, I could see what a joy it might have been. When it came time to leave, the older boy said he had something to give me, and I should close my eyes and hold out my hand. I thought it might be something made from construction paper. He made a lot of things that way.

But I felt metal. When I opened my eyes, it was a Lincoln penny. I hid my tears, thanked my student, said good-bye and hopped into my car. We did not then even have pennies in Canada. Where would a boy in Western Quebec even get a Lincoln penny, and why would he give such a treasure to me? At home I phoned my student to say I had arrived safely, and I told her what her son had done. She asked him if he had given me the penny and why, and he said "Because it is beautiful."

It has been over eight years. The cats are still with me. I have not remarried or re-partnered. I have adopted an amazing daughter, and I love her two daughters. I am, improbably, a father and a grandfather. I have friends. I have purpose. My wife visits me in dreams, and we do ordinary things.

And when the sadness returns, which it does, I pet my cat, and I think, in God we trust.