"What do you do when someone is begging you to help them die?" is the question I received via text from my mom this afternoon. Earlier she told me that she and my dad were going to visit their long-time friend who was in Intensive Care. He is around my dad's age, I believe. He and my dad worked together many years ago at the State Penitentiary. My parents knew him before he had an accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. From what I remember, he fell from a ladder while cutting branches from a tree in his front yard. He's lived an excruciatingly difficult but full life in a wheelchair since then, with the support of his dedicated and resilient wife. I saw he and his wife during my most recent trip home and spent some time talking to them. He is bright, witty, and sarcastic. His wife is gentle, hopeful, and adoring.
I don't know the details, but something happened recently that has made his health decline rapidly. He is in the hospital today with tubes in his throat and on support, but he is coherent and desperate. I've had honest conversations with my parents about him recently. They've told me that he has been surrendering. They've told me that he is through with his struggle. He has nothing left in him. He has been honest and frank about his experience as a quadriplegic, he has never really painted it as a blessing to have survived that fall with such consequences.
As a young girl I remember being so intrigued by his story. He had children, just like my dad. He was doing something I've seen my own father do in our front yard. He fell. My dad never did. I imagined what it would be like to have a dad that was so completely changed. I remember feeling so fortunate. I never want to make my own fortune out of someone else's pain, but it reminded me, as a child, that things can be taken from you in a moment, and that's something I've never forgotten.
So, my mom asked me that question and I started to answer from the heart. And all I could think of was PRAY. You pray. You pray to anything, anyone, any entity. You just throw your words and your compassion and your faith into the wind and hope that it lands someplace where it will land softly; some fertile ground where it will be tended by caring hands. It's all you can do. You pray for his relief, you pray for his family's relief from grief, you pray for peace. It's all you can do, and that's not enough in those moments when your friend of several decades is begging you to help him leave his pain and the burden of his body. But, I really think that's all there is.
I'm not of any religious conviction. I've tried, and nothing has fit me. But I am sure that living a spiritual life is possible without ever knowing of one god or entity, or following any specific scripture. It's just that willingness to see another person suffering, to not turn away, and to pray for their comfort and peace.
I don't want to forget that there is suffering in this world. I don't want to neglect my obligation to pray and hold light and send out as much love as I am able. I know that I can do this by acknowledging with gratitude all the beauty and joy with which I am surrounded. And I know that I can do this by acknowledging the pain and suffering of others, in all it's manifestations, many of which are invisible to the eye.
Tonight I'll pray for him, and his wife and children. Tonight I'll pray because all we can do is hope for a little bit of grace in the moments when we are stripped of our power and dignity, when we are in pain or suffering.
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