A tale of thirty years
January 27, 2026
It was midafternoon and I was driving my new car home from an appointment with Jared. I had just bought the car two months earlier as a present for my 50th Birthday. I had a fun time with Jared that day. Effective treatment with a bonus happy ending. It’s our usual way of doing things and we enjoy our arrangement. How far we’ve come..
I was feeling good and looking forward to getting home. Almost to my exit off the freeway and a song comes on the radio. Not the normal FM radio but the Lithium channel on Sirius XM. Obviously named for the Nirvana song, Lithium plays 90’s grunge and alternative rock.
I had been enjoying my free three month trial of Sirius XM that came with the new car for a couple months but the only channel I listened to was Lithium. I bring that up because I had been listening to a lot of Lithium and they had never played this song.
Sometimes spirits communicate in subtle, or not so subtle, ways. It’s not always an apparition appearing behind you in the mirror or a thing that goes bump in the night. In fact, it’s usually not that. More often it’s a phantom smell like cigar smoke or perfume. Finding a random coin on the ground or maybe a photo gets repositioned on the nightstand.
Sometimes it’s a song on an XM radio station that wouldn’t normally be on the playlist.
Round Here by the Counting Crows. I had been listening for two months and kept listening for another month. Round Here was only ever played this one time and the timing was not random.
It was our favorite song when we 18, a lifetime ago and also the time when our friendship was the best and hadn’t yet been polluted and broken by the messiness of real life. We would sing it in the car over and over again. The song has a lot of words and we knew them all. It was the soundtrack of our lives.
Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog, where no one notices the contrast of white on white.
The lump in my throat was immediate and I couldn’t breathe. My eyes filled with tears and 30 years of our history began replaying itself.
OMG, today is the day and I hadn’t been thinking about it but she knew. She knew and she sent this song as a hello or a good bye or just to make her presence known because she knew that I would get the point.
And in between the moon and you, angels get a better view of the crumbling difference between wrong and right.
How could it be exactly a year later and I’m doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time and Round Here is on the radio? Too many “exactlys” to be a coincidence. Monique had sent a communication from the great beyond.
January 27, 2025 – one year earlier
Jared
Almost a year to the day after our initial meeting, I was driving to an appointment at Jared’s office, having just cleared the rest of my schedule because of a text I received from Monique’s daughter. “Get here now”, it said.
In the last couple months I had received this text on four other occasions. Each time I dropped everything and went straight to the hospital, expecting the worst. The entire situation could easily be called “the worst” but each time, the can got kicked down the road.
Prolonging the inevitable with the miracles of modern medicine is a complex issue.
I got the text, “get here now, the end is nigh!” and I thought well fuck, here we go again. I didn’t know what to hope for. Is her number up or do we kick the can down the road, again?
It’s hard to know how to feel. It’s not that I want her to die but I also don’t want her to continue living or rather, to continue being kept alive – if you could actually call it that.
I wasn’t going to cancel my appointment with Jared though. I had tremendous foot pain and was also looking forward to the distraction from this situation with Monique that I didn’t want to deal with and didn’t know how to feel about. It was heavy and it was difficult. I wanted to be there for her and I wanted to hide from it all at the same time. I thought we would be old lady friends, she wasn’t supposed to die before her 50th birthday.
I arrive at Jared’s office feeling wrecked inside but trying to look calm. I don’t need him to see me ugly crying, it’s not hot. As he’s walking me back to an exam room he says, “I have some news to share with you and it is NOT good.”
I really don’t need this today.
I look at him, wide eyed and say, “what’s wrong?”
He says he’ll tell me in a minute after he finishes up with and gets rid of his other patient and then he leaves me alone to mentally doomscroll the possibilities.
Are we caught? That’s the real question.
No, I decide, “we” are not caught because if we were, he would’ve told me not to show up.
So I’m in the clear, probably.
Was he caught doing something else?
Does he gave some horrible disease?
Is he moving out the country?
Did he flip out and accidentally kill someone?
Did he drown his wife in the tub?
Good god, what could it be?
My heart is pounding because I know that whatever it is, it’s bad. He’s visibly rattled and I don’t know what, if any, role I have in the nature of the problem.
He leaves me sitting there for what feels like an eternity. Finally, finally he sends his other patient away and returns to the room.
I continue staring at him with rapt attention and ask “What happened?”
He says, “I’ve been outed and exposed”.
“What does that mean?”, I ask.
And then he tells me a horrifying story, the prophetic nature of which turns my stomach. I was wish was ever wrong sometimes, I really do.
Several months prior, Jared and I had a conversation about his past escapades and loose ends coming home to roost.
I had said something to effect of “any one of those loose ends” could reappear and ruin your life whenever they feel like it.”
And that is what happened.
A loose end from a couple years ago started texting him in a hostile and aggressive manner. He wasn’t actually sure who it was but wanted to find out to try and diffuse the situation.
He should not have texted her back. Any fool could see that, but he did and I’m not entirely sure the reason he gave was the real reason why. Jared asked if she wanted to come over so they could talk and, as is standard protocol, she said she would only come over if her sent her a selfie.
So he did.
God Dammit, Jared. Not well played. Not at all.
Guess what the girl does?
She has apparently become some kind of self appointed watchdog and punisher of cheating men. She goes to her favorite social media channel and posts in a group called Scumbag Men. She includes his picture along with his real name and a scandalous story that is grossly exaggerated and mostly false.
Jared finds out when a mutual friend of ours sees the post and calls him to relay the news.
The next day as things continue to unfold and the dominos are starting to fall, Jared goes through his wife’s phone to check her messages. Sure enough, pyscho girl has started messaging his wife with photos and all kinds of nasty stories and allegations. His wife hasn’t seen the messages yet but he knows that even if he deletes them or blocks her, pyscho girl will keep coming until she gets what she’s after.
“It all happened exactly the way you said it would“, he tells me.
Being right all the time is a curse.
“So, what did you do?” I ask.
He tells me that the only thing he could do to mitigate the power of pyscho girl’s threats of exposure was to tell his wife. If his wife already knows, the whole thing becomes a moot point.
Makes sense, sorta.
The only problem with this strategy is that his wife didn’t see the humor in any of that and is now a scorned woman. She was already an emotionally abusive narcissist, but now... she’s never coming down from her cross. Not ever. He doesn’t know yet if she will divorce him, kick him out, ruin him financially, take the kids, all of the above. She could pretty much do anything she wants. The conversation continues and he is coming unraveled. Shaking, crying, saying “I don’t want my life to be over”, and also talking about suicide.
I shake my head and say, “I’m not going to say it because it’s too easy.”
“Not going to say what?” he asks.
“I told you so.”
“I know!”
I don’t believe I had previously mentioned that this was the first time I had come his office for a legit medical reason. He’s my affair but he’s today he’s also my doctor and I need his help. Jared is an unhinged hot mess but I still need his help.
In retrospect, I probably should’ve just said, “you’re a fucking idiot”, and left. But of course I didn’t do that. I’ve never seen him this unraveled and I was afraid of what he might do if I walked out. He’s a combat veteran with PTSD, this is a volatile situation.
In the midst of this dumpster fire he asks if I still want him to treat me. I’m not sure that’s a great idea but I say yes anyway.
As he’s treating me, he continues talking and has temporarily scared himself straight. “I can never fuck you again”, he says. “You’re beautiful, but I can never fuck you again. I could really use a friend though.”
I don’t believe him about never fucking me again, and I don’t need this shit today, but I’m trying to be cool.
What’s Fonzie like?
Cool.
Do you know anyone else who would sit through this on their way to visit a dear friend on her death bed?
No, right?
That’s what I thought.
There had been many times prior to this day when I had considered walking away from Jared but every time, I would get a loud intuition that said, “Do not abandon him.” I hadn’t known what that meant or why, but it was clear to me that this situation, right now, was why.
There’s no good way to prepare for a day like this.
I told him that, first and foremost, he is a good doctor. Like, no hyperbole, he’s the very best at what he does. He helps people overcome tremendous problems and he is not a bad person. I remind him that he is an awesomely dedicated father. I also challenge him to show me a doctor who is not cheating. He has to concede that I have a point. I knew intuitively that pyscho girl was not going to do anything to come after his medical license. Infidelity is not illegal but false accusations at that level would give him grounds to sue her for slander. She’s a miserable coward and won’t push it that far. I implore him to not seek revenge. Not because she doesn’t deserve it but because there’s nothing he can do that won’t ultimately make it worse. “The universe will take care of it”, I tell him.
I’ve been laying on an exam table most of this time and, when it’s safe to sit up, I pull him over to me and hold him close with my hands on the back of his head. “I’m sorry this is happening to you”, I say, “I will not abandon you no matter what happens.”
He reiterates that he can’t ever fuck me again and I say what I always say which is, “I’m not forcing you to do anything.”
I also say, “You’re brilliant, and hot, and fucking crazy and broken all at the same time. I already know this about you.” Upset as he is, I still see a little grin.
Months later Jared would tell me, “You’re the only one who told me it was ok”.
“I’m not like everyone else”, was my reply.
After what seems like an eternity but was only about an hour, our session ends and I get back on the road.
Monique
It’s 2:00 in the afternoon and Monique is on hospice care at her mom’s house which is in the next town over.
I’ve already had an unbelievably weird day and we’re just getting warmed up.
When I arrive at Monique’s mom’s house, I text Travis this exact thing: “Jesus H. Fucking Christ, you can’t make this shit up. I don’t have time to go into it but now I’m going to sit with Monique until she dies.”
Thanksgiving
It was Thanksgiving Day of 2024 when I learned that Monique had been admitted to the ICU with pneumonia.
About four years prior, Monique had been diagnosed with MS after falling twice in her living room and not being able to get back up. She complained of a numb tingling in her legs – like when they fall asleep and start waking up. That kind of tingling except it never stops. It was happening in her hands too. The falls precipitated a trip to the ER and a battery of tests along with the bad news that caught everyone off guard. She has Multiple Sclerosis and it’s already quite advanced. We all know it’s a death sentence, we just don’t know how long.
She aggressively pursued every treatment option she could, even going to a Mayo Clinic in Arizona for infusions. At best, the treatments may have slowed the progression of the MS a little but I never saw anything I would actually call an improvement. MS only moves in one direction.
The 1990’s
Monique and I met in high school. We were both on the drum line in marching band. She was one grade ahead of me and our friendship started to take root her senior year which would’ve been 1993.
We were fast friends who lived for devious plans and wild adventures. She was my original “caretaker” as she could see that I was in no way a functional adult but she loved me anyway. She made sure I ate and didn’t do anything too stupid.
We spent endless late nights at IHOP and Village Inn, driving across the desert at all hours – sometimes with boys hidden in the trunk. We had wild adventures, dragging kegs of beer up the side of a mountain to spend the night at the a hot springs with Aksak and his friends. We had crazy rendezvous with Dean in Las Vegas. We made up stories and pretty much did whatever we wanted with no repercussions – because we were already good at getting away with shit.
In some ways this story is not just for me but also for Aksak because he is my only friend who would read this and remember that version of Monique.
The dynamic of the two of us together was either stellar friend or formidable enemy to whomever crossed our path. The mid 90’s were our best times.
The Counting Crows released their album August and Everything After on September 14, 1993 and Round Here immediately became our favorite song. It sounded like life in our hometown, it sounded like us. We listened to it all the time, sang it in the car with or without the stereo. We enjoyed the rest of the album too, especially Omaha, Mr. Jones and Anna Begins but there was just something too eerily spot on about the lyrics of Round Here, it hit us in the feels – forever.
The 2000’s
Those years in the mid 90’s were the best. As adulthood started to set in, Monique and I grew up in different ways.
I don’t want to speak ill of the dead but our differences became progressively more pronounced over the years. Marriages, kids, careers, and life choices that looked very different for each of us. We had a significant conflict that caused us not to speak for several years and when that rift finally healed, I decided that I wanted my friend more than I needed to understand her choices. She didn’t owe me an explanation or require my approval to live her life. There are, no doubt, plenty of people who don’t understand or approve of my life choices. We all walk our own path. At the same time, I stopped sharing certain parts of my life because I didn’t want to burden her with information that she didn’t want to know and no longer found amusing. I felt like the Monique that I knew and loved had disappeared inside this other person who had given up on pursuing any of her own dreams or goals and hid it all behind the guise of “being a good mom”.
No one can criticize your failure to launch when you’re being a good mom.
We still loved each other, still tried to keep the friendship alive as best we could but it was hard.
We never went anywhere or did anything alone after she had her daughter in 2002. Mostly I would just go to her house and we would sit at the kitchen table. Her husband could never be tasked with babysitting and he was often home when I was there. We never had any privacy to talk about anything important. He was an irrationally jealous, unsupportive, generally stupid alcoholic and I disliked him quite a bit – but he was now part of the package.
Still, we tried to keep our friendship alive. I went to parties at their house and came over for lunch from time to time.
Later, Monique’s daughter also played on the drum line of our same high school. Monique was head of the band boosters for a couple years. I became an official band volunteer, attending all of the marching band competitions and symphonic band concerts.
Despite my opinions about other things, Monique was an incredibly dedicated mother. She always provided a safe place that her daughter’s friends could come to when they had a problem, needed a meal or somewhere to crash. She tirelessly drove gangs of young musicians all over town to every kind of band and drum line practice. She went through all kinds of hell to make sure her troubled and reluctant daughter graduated from high school. Motherhood was her purpose in life and then her daughter grew up.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that less than a year after her daughter graduated high school is when Monique was diagnosed with MS.
I continued going over but it got to be really hard to watch. Pretty quickly Monique was confined to a wheel chair, permanently slumped at an awkward sideways angle over the kitchen table as her spine became unable to support her weight. She never quit smoking. She probably figured why bother? And that’s a valid point, but…
I really struggled with how I felt about it all. You can’t give yourself MS, it’s genetic but still, I felt like it was the final culmination of a lifetime of giving up, of extremely poor self care, drinking, smoking, of staying married to a drunk, of never trying to accomplish anything for herself. To batting well below her IQ and actual potential.
Trust me, I know how epically shitty that sounds.
The Hospital
It was only a few days before Monique was admitted to the ICU that I had received excellent results on my own blood work. No problems, no prescriptions. I’m super fit and super healthy and there but for the grace of god, go I. Monique and I are born the same year. She is a few months older but essentially we’re the same age.
Standing over her hospital bed while she is completely immobilized with a tube down her throat, I can’t wrap my head around it. How? Why? We’re the same age. I am deeply disturbed and incredibly grateful for my health all at the same time.
It was clear to me, and to everyone, that what we were witnessing was the end stages of MS. Most people with MS ultimately die from pneumonia or other respiratory issues. Once an MS patient is put on a ventilator, there’s no coming back.
It is, to date, probably the most awful thing I’ve seen. When I arrived at the hospital Monique was unrecognizable. They weren’t exactly sure if she had had a stroke or if the MS had taken another big step forward, or maybe both.
She couldn’t move her legs at all and could barely move her arms from the elbow down. She could not sit up, or even roll over, unassisted. Monique had no motor control in her hands so she couldn’t hold a pen to write or to peck out a text message on her phone. She also couldn’t speak.
But worst of all, is that she was awake and aware of what was happening. Can you even imagine the horrors of this situation? She is imprisoned inside her body, knows full well what is going on, but can’t communicate any of her own questions, concerns or wishes.
Yeah, that’s fucking terrific.
The only very small saving grace is that she could nod her head yes or no in response to questions. You learn really fast in a situation like this how many questions require a far more involved answer than yes or no.
You also learn right quick who the team players are.
Monique’s mom, Elaine, was at the hospital pretty much around the clock. She was there far more than anyone else, only going home occasionally to shower and eat real food.
Monique’s dad couldn’t stomach the situation and someone had to stay home to take care of the dogs.
Monqiue’s husband was there a fair amount but was often so drunk that Elaine would get pissed at him and tell him to leave. Drunk people are pretty useless in heavy duty situations. Because of his drinking, Keith, was not allowed to make any decisions.
Monique’s daughter, Allison, always had a lot of excuses for not being there. She was living with a first class loser who was basically keeping her around just to raise his kid. Not being able to find a babysitter for the kid was Allison’s excuse for never being there. I don’t actually believe that though. I think Allison, who was only about 22 at the time, was overwhelmed and afraid and her dad was always drunk and she just couldn’t handle it. Unfortunately, no matter how much Elaine and others tried to tell her, I don’t believe Allison really understood the repercussions and lifelong regret that would follow from not coming to see your mom in the hospital while she’s dying. There’s no second chances for that.
I was certainly not there “all the time” but I would come by several times a week and stay for several hours each time. I tried to be supportive to Elaine because she was toeing the line more or less alone with no one to lean on.
There is one other person who was there and I was so proud of her. Her name is Lindsay and she had been lifelong best friends with Allison. Recently Lindsay was having some major problems in her personal life and had been living with Monique and Keith, even though Allison had moved out and was living with her boyfriend.
Lindsay is the same age as Allison, she calls Monique “mom” and she is there, a lot, even though Allison is nowhere to be found.
Don’t Fear The Reaper
So many times I got a text from Elaine saying “get here now” and I would go and nothing would happen. Hours later I would leave and Monique would still be alive. This is one of those times but something did happen, just not what I expected.
They say that when people are close to death they start seeing things. The veil gets thin when you have one foot in the grave and paranormal stuff starts to happen.
On this night almost everyone was there. The call had gone out and various family members had flown in from all over the place to say goodbye. One of these people was Keith’s sister Denise.
Denise is well intentioned. She is there for Monique but she is also there to try to keep her brother from drinking himself to death. Thankfully, Denise is sober. That’s the good news. The bad news is that she’s a bible thumping Christian who doesn’t know when to shut up.
Monique’s hospital room is crowded with people but I am sitting right next to her by the side of her bed and I start to notice that she is distressed. Monique keeps looking at the ceiling and then back at me, over and over and with growing agitation. She is wide-eyed and looks terrified.
I ask her if she sees something and she nods yes. About this same time, Denise launches into her own tirade interrogating Elaine, demanding to know if Monique had ever been baptized and asking Monique if she had accepted Jesus Christ as her personal savior. My irritation was apparent and I said to Monique more than loud enough for Denise to hear, “don’t listen to her” and Elaine who also didn’t see the humor at Denise’s line of questioning spoke up and told Denise to take a seat with that shit because it wasn’t Monique’s belief system.
I had a strange feeling right then that there was a reason why I was in the room. No one else was picking up on what was happening with Monique and they certainly didn’t know how to handle it.
Monique is still frantically looking back and forth between the ceiling and me while this family squabble erupts but I keep telling her, “don’t worry about them, listen to me.”
I asked her if she saw something up there by the ceiling above her bed. She nods a big YES.
“Is it some kind of entity”
YES
“Are you afraid of it?”
Another big YES.
“Are you afraid of it because it wants you to go with it?”
Again, big YES.
“Are you not ready to go with it?”
Big NO.
Everyone else is just watching now.
“The only reason there would be an entity here is just to help you. It’s not evil, it doesn’t want to scare you. It’s only here to help.”
I feel her family’s eyes on the back of my head.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. If you’re not ready to go yet, tell it to chill out for a while and come back later.”
Of course, she can’t exactly “tell” it anything – at least not out loud. So I look up at the ceiling and I say, “Hey, she’s not ready yet. You need to come back later.”
For the record, I don’t see anything unusual on the ceiling.
Monique looked calmer after that.
“Did it leave?”
She nods yes.
Afterwards no one said anything to me about this incident. Maybe they thought I was crazy or maybe they just didn’t know what to say.
I believe that Monique absolutely saw something that we couldn’t see. An entity had come for her and I believe it was a real experience.
Going home
Monique was in the hospital from Thanksgiving until the middle of January. And that entire time all she wanted to do was to go home. She would mouth the word “home” over and over again.
Eventually it was decided that there was not much more the hospital could do and they can only keep people in the ICU for so long. Monique was transferred to another long term care hospital while arrangements were being made for her to go home.
In the end, Monique didn’t get to go back to her own house because no one was going to leave her alone in the care of drunk Keith. It was agreed upon that she would be transported to her parent’s house. Monique’s dad is a retired respiratory therapist so he could handle the responsibilities of the mobile ventilator. It was also agreed upon that this was hospice care.
Her parents would continue feeding her and administering meds through the feeding tube that had been installed in her stomach but there would be no more trips back to the hospital or any kind of emergency Hail-Mary actions should she take a turn for the worse. The hospice team said she may possibly live for a month or two.
God forbid. This has gone on long enough.
It took one week.
Elaine told me that Monique’s body had rejected the formula through the feeding tube. This was the sign that she was done. Elaine made the decision to take Monique off the ventilator and so now it really was just a matter of time.
In the week that she was at her parent’s house, Monique did get to spend some time with Allison and I think that was all she wanted. She wouldn’t die in the hospital because she was waiting to see Allison.
When I arrived the house was full of people, more family but I was still the only friend.
Her parents had placed a big order from Dion’s so there would be food for everyone. Monique’s hospital bed was set up in the middle of the living room and it was kind of like a party. We reminisced and told our favorite stories about her. The music was on all night, with all her favorite songs except the song that no one else knew or remembered that she liked, Round Here by the Counting Crows.
As the night wore on, we would monitor her blood oxygen level. Monique was awake when I got here but as her O2 levels were dropping she drifted off to sleep. Lindsay was doing an admirable job of administering the morphine on an hourly basis to make sure that Monique was not in any pain.
Eventually people started to leave. Monique’s blood oxygen level was down to 36%. I didn’t know you can still be alive with a blood oxygen level of only 36% but apparently you can. Not awake, but technically still alive.
Many times throughout the evening, Elaine would stand by the side of her bed and tell Monique that it was ok for her leave, that she didn’t need to worry about us – we would be ok, and that she should go and be with her grandparents and others that had gone before.
I can’t even write that without crying, much less stand there and say it. Elaine is an oak, somehow finding the strength to soldier on through what must arguably be the worst day of her life.
I never actually said good bye, not out loud anyway. I spoke to Monique telepathically in my meditations. Call me crazy but I felt that she could hear me. I thanked her for her friendship and I promised her that we would find each other again but that in the meantime, she didn’t have to stay here anymore. She was free to go.
Sometime after midnight, the last of the other guests had either gone home or gone to bed. Elaine and I were the only ones left in the living room with Monique. We turned off the music and the lights.
Elaine again stands by the side of Monique’s bed and says, “the party’s over now my sweet girl, it’s ok for you to leave.”
We stay in the living room. Elaine lays down on the couch and I lay back in a recliner. There is a type of breathing that you hear at the end. It’s called the death rattle and it’s pretty loud. I don’t think either one of us was entirely asleep because we were both roused at the same time when the death rattle stopped.
I put the PulseOx on Monique’s finger and it couldn’t get a reading. No pulse, no blood oxygen level.
4:30am on January 28, 2025. It was over.
Elaine and I stood there holding each other and crying for a while before going to tell the others.
Xavier came to pick me up as I was in no condition to drive.
This is my life and you can’t make this stuff up which, in a way, Monique would appreciate. She always loved a good story.
No Rest For The Wicked 
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