Thinking on Mortality 2-4-11

Anderson, South Carolina

Last week two of my friends decided this world no longer held possibilities for them. At their own hand they walked from the wonders of life, leaving behind fine homes, loving children, and friends. We were left with the scintillating bewilderment that comes only with suicide, seasoned with survivor’s guilt; could we have done anything different to head them off from these violent decisions? How is it people living in physically attractive healthy bodies decide to destroy them?

On the other hand those living large fulfilling lives are often catapulted into downward trajectories of declining health. Weeks ago my older brother was struck by a virulent cancer, even saying if he did not do something at once he’d be dead in short order. He describes being “on a one way journey of no return and no escape.” How is it someone living life so large could be dead in short order, someone who wants to stay alive; yet an Episcopal priest with a fine church, home, wife, and daughters, with grand possibilities would choose to be dead in short order, at his own hand?

My twin brother has been down in South America working as a translator for a group of medical missionaries who set up mobile hospital camps several times of year in the high Andes. He doesn’t want to walk from the wonders of life, yet a few days ago he also found himself compelled, as he puts it, "to go home over the weekend and get on with what looks like the first step of that slippery slope that eventually gets us all ... Feel like I am going down a very long and deep hole.” How does someone full of life find himself consigned to the vicissitudes of a catastrophic cancer diagnosis, while another in a young beautiful cancer-free body decides to destroy it, leaving behind her teen-age daughter, splendid house, and a cloud of people who love her?

Even quantum physicists cannot describe these parallel universes, one in which contestants will give everything they have in order to stay in the game of life, and another in which individuals will cash in everything they have to opt out of life. I am not fully convinced psychologists or psychiatrists are much better at explaining this dreadful reality.

A long-time friend of mine was in Texas helping his brother put up Christmas decorations. He had just preached at his mother’s funeral. While putting out yard decorations my friend stumbled, fell, and subsequently died of a subdural hematoma despite emergency surgery. He died twelve hundred miles from home; his wife of forty-five years is now wandering in a fog.

This weekend I participated in three funerals, one on Saturday and a ‘double feature’ on Sunday. It was a bit surreal to spend the weekend this way; three times in churches on Sunday alone, the cemetery for interment, and three visitations. If my count is correct I ‘had’ seven deaths in January and the present close encounters with my brothers. As if this is not enough, I am presently going through evaluation to determine if I have a neuromuscular monster that is lurking at the edges of my life. There are days when some of my parts don’t work and some days when pain nerves are maxed out.

Does acceptance hold a key to ‘processing’ these catastrophic events, events seemingly stochastic in their nature, even capricious? Can we make any kind of sense of such events while pulled through nine Gs; whipped through life’s barrel rolls? In recovery we make our first step towards serenity and peace by admitting we are powerless over people, places, and things. Cancer, suicide of spouses and children, and veils shrouding our futures are things we have virtually no control of. When we can say out loud honestly that we simply don’t have control of everything in our lives, while yet embracing the wonder of a shimmering sunrise detonating in first light, we are well on our way. Easier said that done, for sure. In recovery we speak of spiritual progress, not perfection. Certainly, no one is going to say “Goodie! Goodie!” when cancer shows up or someone precious to us cashes out, not even those of us far along in our journeys.

In Eastern culture there’s widespread acceptance of death as part of the natural order of things. There tends to be far less fear of death in many nations than found here in America or European lands. In America one can argue fear has become politically correct, often showing up as a great motivator in health and wellness education materials. It certainly has shown up in the acerbic war of words over the ethical and moral merits of euthanasia. Little has polarized America more than this battle to choose.

Chip Ingram, a well regarded preacher, reports Westerners are far more interested in staying alive no matter the physical, emotional and financial costs, than dying well. It’s a battle to the very end. The medical economics literature is replete with evidence that 80% of Medicare dollars are spent in the last six months of life. One of the great challenges in American healthcare is the reality of vast resources being expended to extend quantity of life but yielding no improvement in quality of life. For those being subjected to arterial blood gasses every few hours in an ICU cubicle, while struggling with ICU psychosis, gasping for air, it’s arguable their quality of life is being degraded immensely. Families will often override patient’s written wishes regarding extraordinary or heroic measures to keep them alive – period.

It’s well known in academic circles that physicians have a higher fear of death than non-physicians. The culture of American medical education presents death as the ultimate enemy. Giving a patient over to death is seen as critical treatment failure. Only recently have we seen meaningful numbers of physicians begin to embrace palliative care, admitting to the inevitable and working towards a dignified death free of intractable pain and emotional distress.

Is it possible embracing Eastern thinking with regard to the natural order of things, including death, would result in far less fear of death, perhaps even a significant reduction in the emotional and affective angst that drives some to find a final solution in the very thing we have been taught to dread? A curious paradox. What is not paradox is the recovery message embracing the idea of things being exactly as they are supposed to be in God’s world. Acceptance brings us round the back way to a place Easterners have known for millennia.

Giving up the fight just might free us up to live life fully, even to the very end.