From One Last Recipe From Mother, for the Good Death, by Larry Zaroff, M.D., in today’s NY Times:
Everyone who knew my mother wanted to stay in touch. She had an endless supply of common sense, and sound advice balanced by love. And she traveled from her home near Washington to visit her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren throughout the country. ***
Now, knowing her well – not as well as she knew me – I am certain she did not want us to make a second trip. For her to cause her family any inconvenience was out of the question. Her plan was to die as soon as she saw us, goodbye and funeral in one package.
We doctors are taught to cure, to heal, when possible to restore patients to a full and active life in society. We are also taught, if we cannot establish health, to allow patients a good death.
But we pay little attention to what dying patients owe their loved ones. Leo Tolstoy understood this. In his novella “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” the protagonist, dying slowly, makes life miserable – complaining, criticizing, screaming – for his family until the last day, when he realizes that they love him. He then understands what he owes his wife and children: a good death.
The other day my wife said she had read an obituary of a man in his 90s. The obituary said that the man exercised five days a week and was in great shape until just a few days before his death from a short illness. That’s the way to do it, God willing.
Leave a Reply