*Based upon Andrew Malcom’s September 24, 1984 New York Times Article
The cold January wind knocked against the windows, seeping in through old panes and cooling the otherwise cozy radiator heated home. Wylie Boyle sent his housekeeper on ahead to the post office that wintry Saturday morning in Paducah, Ky. A thick coat, wrapped around a smaller coat, wrapped around some sweaters, wrapped around an old man kept him warm that day. Then, as he had every day, the 86-year-old retired insurance salesman went to visit his wife, Avis, at Richards Memorial Hospital.
His wife, Mrs. Boyle, suffered from Alzheimer's disease, a progressive, irreversible deterioration of the brain that, over time, can turn simple chores into impossible ones and loved ones into strangers. His heart still remembered all the things hers did not. Never would he have called his aging wife a burden, but the term “burden of love” seems more and more appropriate. At times in church the 84-year-old Mrs. Boyle would start talking loudly in the middle of the sermon. At home, in front of others, she would harshly criticize her husband for faults that only she saw. He placed his hand on top of hers as they sat together in her hospital room. Her room held a menagerie of relics from the past. Framed photos of the two, books, letters, all placed strategically around her bed as if through osmosis her memory would return. When she pulled her hand away away he looked at the floor, and touched his chest, slowly feeling the tears roll from the corners of his eyes to the bottom of his chin.
That morning a slightly overweight nurse named Bobby Chaney heard a strange sound when she passed the closed door of the hospital room. It sounded as if an oxygen tank had overturned. She slowly pushed open the door to reveal a sad or desperate scene. There was Avis in her bed, a small red stain growing larger on the front of her nightgown. Her eyes were closed, she lay there silently.
Mr. Boyle, himself with failing eyesight, was sitting down in a bedside chair. Immobile, he starred blankly into an empty corner of the room. He had a .38-caliber pistol gripped tightly in his hand. His gaze slowly panned up to meet with Bobby’s and before anyone could move, he shot himself in the heart, too. The couple died in seconds.
Few people outside Cottle County ever learned of that incident last January. The local coroner classified it a murder-suicide. In nonlegal terms it was a ''mercy killing'' - two of them, counting Mr. Boyle's own death in frantic flight from the loneliness he may have anticipated without his lifelong companion.
If mercy killing - the killing of someone by another, ostensibly for his own good - is the nation's open secret, then senior-citizen suicide is the hidden secret.
*Based upon Andrew Malcom’s September 24, 1984 New York Times Article
His wife, Mrs. Boyle, suffered from Alzheimer's disease, a progressive, irreversible deterioration of the brain that, over time, can turn simple chores into impossible ones and loved ones into strangers. His heart still remembered all the things hers did not. Never would he have called his aging wife a burden, but the term “burden of love” seems more and more appropriate. At times in church the 84-year-old Mrs. Boyle would start talking loudly in the middle of the sermon. At home, in front of others, she would harshly criticize her husband for faults that only she saw. He placed his hand on top of hers as they sat together in her hospital room. Her room held a menagerie of relics from the past. Framed photos of the two, books, letters, all placed strategically around her bed as if through osmosis her memory would return. When she pulled her hand away away he looked at the floor, and touched his chest, slowly feeling the tears roll from the corners of his eyes to the bottom of his chin.
That morning a slightly overweight nurse named Bobby Chaney heard a strange sound when she passed the closed door of the hospital room. It sounded as if an oxygen tank had overturned. She slowly pushed open the door to reveal a sad or desperate scene. There was Avis in her bed, a small red stain growing larger on the front of her nightgown. Her eyes were closed, she lay there silently.
Mr. Boyle, himself with failing eyesight, was sitting down in a bedside chair. Immobile, he starred blankly into an empty corner of the room. He had a .38-caliber pistol gripped tightly in his hand. His gaze slowly panned up to meet with Bobby’s and before anyone could move, he shot himself in the heart, too. The couple died in seconds.
Few people outside Cottle County ever learned of that incident last January. The local coroner classified it a murder-suicide. In nonlegal terms it was a ''mercy killing'' - two of them, counting Mr. Boyle's own death in frantic flight from the loneliness he may have anticipated without his lifelong companion.
If mercy killing - the killing of someone by another, ostensibly for his own good - is the nation's open secret, then senior-citizen suicide is the hidden secret.
*Based upon Andrew Malcom’s September 24, 1984 New York Times Article