death

What Child is This?

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / 3 Comments

Christmas Eve is only hours away.  There are so many joys to celebrate, and so many blessings to treasure, and yet the world reminds us in ways loud and quiet that life is also fraught with suffering and loss.

A man died, frozen to death, under a bridge in my hometown this week.  His body was discovered several days after he died, covered in frost.  His name was Robert Hissom.  I didn’t know him, and the circumstances of his death suggest it had been a long time since anyone knew him.

This post is not about analysis or solutions, it is simply a recognition that this man was once someone’s baby.  Somewhere things went horribly wrong for Robert.  Some people say he was probably mentally ill, that he was an addict, an alcoholic, a “loser.”  These things are either speculation or opinion at this point; regardless, they have nothing to do with the sadness that comes over the heart and mind at his lonely death.  What is certain is that he was once a little boy who played, and went to school, and had friends, and had dreams.  He wanted to be loved, and protected, and to grow up to have a great life.

The happiness associated with Christmas is tempered with the understanding that the babe faces a solitary and agonizing death.  If Robert’s story speaks to you in any way, please consider one more gift commitment this holiday season.  In Charleston, West Virginia, I recommend contacting Covenant House to find out how money, advocacy, time, and donations of food or clothing can help someone in trouble.  If you live elsewhere, please contact the nonprofit in your community that works to address chronic homelessness.

What Child is this who, laid to rest
On Mary’s lap is sleeping?
Whom Angels greet with anthems sweet,
While shepherds watch are keeping?

This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and Angels sing;
Haste, haste, to bring Him laud,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.

Why lies He in such mean estate,
Where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christians, fear, for sinners here
The silent Word is pleading.

So bring Him incense, gold and myrrh,
Come peasant, king to own Him;
The King of kings salvation brings,
Let loving hearts enthrone Him.

Image credit: Social Exclusion Housing

 

 

 

A New Difficulty for Mankind: How to Die

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / 7 Comments

This holiday weekend is a time when many people gather with those they love and trust the most.  It is traditionally a time of fun, laughter, warm feelings, and full tummies.

It can also be a rare opportunity to speak in-person with the most beloved people in your life about an incredibly important topic, and that is end-of-life health care decisions.  I know, I know, that is not what anyone wants to do.  Personally, I am not convinced this weekend is the ideal time, given all of the other emotions and events that tend to swirl in the mix of family Thanksgiving traditions.

But it is a good time to think, I am certain about that.  Look around the table, the living room, the front porch.  Do you know what your parents want at the end of their lives?  Does your partner know what you want if the worst should come unexpectedly?  It is crucial now that we deal with a monumental change that grips modern life.  I found the following line from an excellent article in The New Yorker  by Atul Gawande to present the issue in a nutshell:

(My patient) was unmarried and without children. So I sat with her sisters in the I.C.U. family room to talk about whether we should proceed with the amputation and the tracheotomy. “Is she dying?” one of the sisters asked me. I didn’t know how to answer the question. I wasn’t even sure what the word “dying” meant anymore. In the past few decades, medical science has rendered obsolete centuries of experience, tradition, and language about our mortality, and created a new difficulty for mankind: how to die.

Until fairly recently, dying was a rapid event.  It was rare to know one was facing terminal illness much before the end.  Today’s health care environment brings many opportunities and much hope in many cases, but it has a side as dark and disturbing as anything I’ve ever read in the bleakest novels.

Dr. Gawande’s article is difficult to read, especially for those of us who have seen people we love battle on through Gulag-like regimens of “care.”  The good news is that I see more friends who are ill choosing to die at home, with the human touch of the most important people in their lives.  They can do this because they made the decision to establish a living will, and to communicate with their family and friends before anything happened.

I am participating today and through the rest of the weekend in the blogger rally created and supported by Engage With Grace – a movement aimed at making sure all of us understand , communicate, and have honored our end-of-life wishes.  I especially am grateful to my friend Bob Coffield for this opportunity.  His Health Care Law Blog is recognized nationally as one of the finest resources for current law and policy issues affecting health care.  (He’s also a Twitter maniac.  You can follow him @bobcoffield.)

At the heart of Engage With Grace are five questions designed to get the conversation about end-of-life started.  In the spirit of Esse Diem‘s commitment to Read Think Speak Write, I hope you will take the opportunity to do each of those things around this critically important issue.