When mama was detected with cancer, though the word C was never mentioned in our home, she told us in no uncertain terms that had I been younger she may have considered medical support but she felt she was ready to go on her terms as she had seen me married, played with her grandchildren and wanted her husband to send her off. That was her choice and we agreed to play along. There was no place for logic or reason. It was all a matter of seeing with ones heart.
I still do not know where I stand but Gawande's book made me aware of how serendipitous Project Why was for me personally. He argues that the quality of life in our twilight years greatly depends on our sense of purpose and usefulness. He recounts how Dr Bill Thomas decided to bring 'life' into a nursing facility for sever lay disabled elderly residents: he simply brought in plants, animals and children and everything changed! The residents who earlier had no 'reason' to love for suddenly felt 'responsible' for the plant in their room or animal on their floor and played with the staff children when they visited. The results were for all to see: the number of prescriptions diminished and so did the cost. I was reminded of the Little Prince and his rose: he has to go back to his planet because he is responsible for his rose.
Project Why saw the life of day when I was touching half a century and somewhat lost. The children had grown, the parents had moved on and life seemed without purpose. Enter Manu and with him countless children that still colour my day and whose dreams are in my custody. And if God remains on board then this will remain true all the way till the end. This I realise today is the greatest gift of all and I am humbled and deeply grateful.
We all need a purpose in life and whereas once life expectancy was shorter and not prolonged by medicine with contented itself to a palliative role, today the spectre of death in a brightly lit ICU where the concept of time is warped and where machines taken the role of the body is very real. In the name of love we subject our helpless loved ones to a terrible ordeal.
Gawande recalls how death once happened in the comfort of the home, with some medical care, where one was surrounded by familiar objects and those one loved. Today there are scant famous last words or simple farewells, be it just holding hands. The whole art of dying has been rewritten in language that is sadly inhumane. No priest or chants but the whirring of a ventilator or the bleeping of a heart monitor. How lonely death has become.
I was blessed again to have bid farewell to my parents at home and on their won terms. I heard their last words and could say good bye in what was home, giving them their final sip of water and chanting the prayers that they had so lovingly taught me.