We were walking around The Farm the other day with one of our neighbors, and for a reason I cannot remember started talking about her mother's sickness and death. She had gotten kidney disease, and because of this, or complications with something else, she had had both her legs amputated at the hip. She also had to go to kidney dialysis every three days. Our neighbor bore the brunt of her care, which pretty much meant that she was on-call most days of the week. Her mother lasted three or so years in this condition.
Yes, tough for all, but it gets worse: "My mother said that if she had known the pain of dialysis, she would never have started. She would feel sick to death for hours afterwards." Her quality of life, then, was low; the expenses high; and much of her daughter's time was spent in her care.
Now, I have made myself realize, it is our turn, the Baby Boomer's, to start feeling the pinch of old-age diseases and death. We are an overwhelmingly large group, and we had fewer children than our parents. We have immigration, yes; in fact, back in 1995, a congressman for the first and last time explained why the government REALLY wasn't cracking down on the flood of illegal immigrants. "We need them for social security and medicare. There's no other way." But this plan does not suffice, for various reasons, and in the end, this is a pyramid scheme; at some point, the weight of overpopulation will be too great, for each generation will need MORE people to support them in their old age. It is a real problem.
This old age business of today is the great, unmentioned elephant in the room for those of us of advancing age. We have seen too many of our old people suffer for years as modern medicine kept them barely alive. It has consumed much of our time and much of the national treasure. I don't have the exact numbers, but they are something like this: the last year of a person's life (in aggregate) consumes around 90 percent of public medical funds. We are going broke because of our medical advances, and worse, we see what those advances often bring to the very old - an agonizing period of slow death.
Said the neighbor as she spoke of her mother, "I don't want it. I would rather die." That is what many of us say, but it's not true. I will not bring others into it by name, as death is a particularly private affair, but I will bring in my father because I can clearly state that he was a braver (and better) man than I. His last four years were ones of near constant suffering, allowed because of an advanced medical procedure, and he only came to peace in the last months of life when he lapsed into near-coma. And yet, he fought for life until those last months. He did not want to die, and neither did my neighbor's mother, for she could have foregone the dialysis at any time, and died. What we say and what we really do, when it comes to death, are not the same.
It is not cowardice, but the nature of things. If someone held my head under water, I would fight frantically to become free, without thought of the final outcome (for instance: let's say that if I lived, I would then be tortured to death). It appears that we cannot stop our struggle for life at any cost. And yet, other cultures in other times show that we can, willingly. It is not a lie that old women would wander off in the cold to die among the Eskimos. Few men among them lived long enough to kill themselves, but if they did, they would do it, too. I read a fascinating account by a late 19th century explorer of an old Eskimo man who held a big feast, gave and received honor to all his guests, and then hung himself in plain view. It was standard stuff. And then of the Kalahari bushmen, who would leave their old parents behind when one or both became too old to keep up with the larger family. It was not done coldly, but it was done. The author then described what they all knew would happen - after a few fights with the hyenas, they would finally succumb, to become their food. It was the natural, "non-violent" way of death for the bushmen.
Could we change, then? Could we save our children from the great bother and greater expense, not by hanging or hyenas, but by refusing medical care at the end of our lives? "Necessity is the mother of invention," my teachers in high school loved to say (and we would mutter, "Necessity is a mother ......"), and perhaps the high price tag for modern medicine is that mother. Maybe not; maybe that would coarsen our society in ways we would not like. But it appears that something must be done.
I am reading a book now by Christopher Dickey, about the life of his famous father, James Dickey ("Deliverance"), and he gives an account of the poets Shelly and Byron swimming in a lake. Shelly goes under, and Byron waits for him - and waits and waits, until he becomes so concerned that he dives under and pulls him from the bottom. Shelly, once on top, is upset:"In a few moments, I should have known the great secret!" Could we ever become like this? Not forced, but ready, and even eager, when our time comes? Again, I know of few accounts (there is one) where this has been so. But it would not hurt us one bit to begin to see death as the natural and inevitable process that it is. If, as it seems, we have become more environmentally friendly and conscious, it follows that this most natural process could be drained of much of its dread. But it cannot be a fad. It must come from a real understanding of what we are, and what life - and death - are really all about. Never easy, but perhaps possible, and maybe even necessary. FK
Yes, tough for all, but it gets worse: "My mother said that if she had known the pain of dialysis, she would never have started. She would feel sick to death for hours afterwards." Her quality of life, then, was low; the expenses high; and much of her daughter's time was spent in her care.
Now, I have made myself realize, it is our turn, the Baby Boomer's, to start feeling the pinch of old-age diseases and death. We are an overwhelmingly large group, and we had fewer children than our parents. We have immigration, yes; in fact, back in 1995, a congressman for the first and last time explained why the government REALLY wasn't cracking down on the flood of illegal immigrants. "We need them for social security and medicare. There's no other way." But this plan does not suffice, for various reasons, and in the end, this is a pyramid scheme; at some point, the weight of overpopulation will be too great, for each generation will need MORE people to support them in their old age. It is a real problem.
This old age business of today is the great, unmentioned elephant in the room for those of us of advancing age. We have seen too many of our old people suffer for years as modern medicine kept them barely alive. It has consumed much of our time and much of the national treasure. I don't have the exact numbers, but they are something like this: the last year of a person's life (in aggregate) consumes around 90 percent of public medical funds. We are going broke because of our medical advances, and worse, we see what those advances often bring to the very old - an agonizing period of slow death.
Said the neighbor as she spoke of her mother, "I don't want it. I would rather die." That is what many of us say, but it's not true. I will not bring others into it by name, as death is a particularly private affair, but I will bring in my father because I can clearly state that he was a braver (and better) man than I. His last four years were ones of near constant suffering, allowed because of an advanced medical procedure, and he only came to peace in the last months of life when he lapsed into near-coma. And yet, he fought for life until those last months. He did not want to die, and neither did my neighbor's mother, for she could have foregone the dialysis at any time, and died. What we say and what we really do, when it comes to death, are not the same.
It is not cowardice, but the nature of things. If someone held my head under water, I would fight frantically to become free, without thought of the final outcome (for instance: let's say that if I lived, I would then be tortured to death). It appears that we cannot stop our struggle for life at any cost. And yet, other cultures in other times show that we can, willingly. It is not a lie that old women would wander off in the cold to die among the Eskimos. Few men among them lived long enough to kill themselves, but if they did, they would do it, too. I read a fascinating account by a late 19th century explorer of an old Eskimo man who held a big feast, gave and received honor to all his guests, and then hung himself in plain view. It was standard stuff. And then of the Kalahari bushmen, who would leave their old parents behind when one or both became too old to keep up with the larger family. It was not done coldly, but it was done. The author then described what they all knew would happen - after a few fights with the hyenas, they would finally succumb, to become their food. It was the natural, "non-violent" way of death for the bushmen.
Could we change, then? Could we save our children from the great bother and greater expense, not by hanging or hyenas, but by refusing medical care at the end of our lives? "Necessity is the mother of invention," my teachers in high school loved to say (and we would mutter, "Necessity is a mother ......"), and perhaps the high price tag for modern medicine is that mother. Maybe not; maybe that would coarsen our society in ways we would not like. But it appears that something must be done.
I am reading a book now by Christopher Dickey, about the life of his famous father, James Dickey ("Deliverance"), and he gives an account of the poets Shelly and Byron swimming in a lake. Shelly goes under, and Byron waits for him - and waits and waits, until he becomes so concerned that he dives under and pulls him from the bottom. Shelly, once on top, is upset:"In a few moments, I should have known the great secret!" Could we ever become like this? Not forced, but ready, and even eager, when our time comes? Again, I know of few accounts (there is one) where this has been so. But it would not hurt us one bit to begin to see death as the natural and inevitable process that it is. If, as it seems, we have become more environmentally friendly and conscious, it follows that this most natural process could be drained of much of its dread. But it cannot be a fad. It must come from a real understanding of what we are, and what life - and death - are really all about. Never easy, but perhaps possible, and maybe even necessary. FK
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