morbid?
Death/dying is a subject that I have wrestled with over the last year because of Julie. As I have looked around the society/culture that I live in these are some of the things I have observed about how we handle death and dying.
We medicate ourselves in order to prolong the days that we get to spend on this planet; we put our aged, and those closer to death often on the margins of our lives by sending them to comfortable ‘communes’ where they can get taken care of by others; we pump our bodies with ’stuff’ to help stop the ageing process; we have incredible hospitals and drugs that allow us keep living despite the pain we may find ourselves in; we fear it yet are obsessed with it (the obsession played out on our TV’s).
Julie’s dad, John was telling us how many, many years ago, when he was growing up there was not today’s medication available and the lucky ones died in their homes with their families. He remembers family members leaving their homes as those dieing with cancer were screaming out in pain - it was so hard as there was nothing that they could do to ease or make their loved one comfortable. John was sharing this as we sat around Julie’s bed in her last days with doctors and nurses increasing her pain meds to keep the moaning at bay. I’m not quite sure why what he related struck me so hard but it did . . . .
I sometimes wonder whether in all of this we have removed ourselves so far away from from dying and death (and even suffering), that we loose or miss something in living. Death can be ugly, fearful, because its is a step into the unknown. It takes faith to believe that there is or isn’t something on the other side.