Heroic Measures

A loved one recently asked me to serve as his healthcare proxy.
"Okay," I said, "but you have to tell me what you want."
"That's easy," he said. "No heroic measures."
"Got it," I said, as if I understood, but I don't. Not really.

Whenever I hear that phrase, I picture a doctor in a superhero costume, hands on his hips, his cape billowing in the breeze, a stethoscope around his neck. He is standing by the bedside of my loved one when I look up and say, "Oh. That won't be necessary," and he simply turns and walks away.

When my mother was dying, a doctor asked me if we had come to "a decision."
"A decision," I said not sure what he meant at first. Then, suddenly, catching his drift, I blurted out: "we never even had a conversation!"

"You'll know when the time comes," my husband assures me. "If the time comes," he adds. But I'm not so sure.