My
father’s dying wish was to die. He had endured more than ten men,
medically speaking. Since 50 years old, he had a heart attack, heart
failure, cardiac bypass surgery and bladder cancer, not to mention
countless procedures and invasive testing. And with that he
managed to live a full life with my Mother; traveling the world,
gambling and seeing family. No matter where the celebration was,
if they were invited they went to Indiana, California, New York, Boston,
Washington, D.C. from their home in Florida.
My father took no pain pills. He did not drink alcohol. And even at the dentist, he hardly had any Novocain, if at all. So when his final illness– pancreatic cancer—was diagnosed when he was about 86 years old – he did what he could to alleviate the disruption and then took the disease into his own hands. He was clear about life—it was to be lived. He never wanted any spotlight on himself; it was difficult to give him gifts for birthdays and Father’s Day. So he certainly did not want his family watching him wither away as this debilitating and devastating disease weakened his body and spirit. And he was clear about that too.
In
late April/early May of 2011, he stopped taking medications and food
and he disrupted the bile drain. But his heart failure and cancer
were not bad enough. He wanted to die in the worse way; he was
placed in a hospice. The doctor at the hospice explained that he
may have to go to a nursing home if he did not die within two
weeks. And at that time the doctor felt he was not even in the
dying process.
My father’s will to die saved him from countless procedures, discomfort and pain. What he got was a death with dignity, which is rare in our society today. He had a great life and death with dignity. Now who wouldn’t want that?
