Marcus

Air can be a fickle bitch. As it makes up the earth’s atmosphere. It goes without saying that we need it to breathe. Without it, we will die.

My brother had a friend, Marcus, who was born with the rare, genetic condition called cystic fibrosis. It’s a condition that mainly effects the lungs. He had chest infection on top of chest infection, and, in the end, although he was on the transplant list, he ended up on a ventilator, a breathing machine that took over the laborious task of breathing for him.

Marcus was twenty-six when he died. He knew he was close to the top of the organ doner list for new lungs, the only thing that would keep him alive. He was the one to decide to be extubated, a decision he didn’t take lightly.

Had he waited one more day, Marcus would have reached the top of the sacred list, and lungs would have been offered to him the day after that. As his wake was underway, had he waited, so would his operation for a new lease on life. Marcus was just too sick to hang on that extra day, a day he thought was never going to come. He was in pain, and on the registry for years.

My brother took the death of Marcus hard. He was the friend who, although always sick, was always there for him. Air is the one thing humans can not live without, and Marcus’s then current lungs, weren’t letting him have any naturally. He couldn’t see the light through the trees and died peacefully, with the aid of morphine.

Air is a fickle bitch. For Marcus, it was the meaning of life and death, death getting the better of him. He was the first of many friends that my brother lost over the years. Most died from suicide, one was knocked down, but Marcus died naturally, not long after he was extubated, with a smile on his face, and his family by his side.