Mathoms, etc.

My friend's sister with a brain tumor opted not to get chemotherapy. My friend is having a tough time accepting this but she said she's getting there. Her sister wisely thought that she didn't want to spend her remaining time on earth wheelchair-bound and weak. Her decision can either be seen as giving up and not fighting, or better, surrendering to the will of a higher power.

The prospect of losing someone you love is very frightening, but it becomes slightly easier when the person who's sick has accepted his mortality. He may not be healed physically, but if the mind and spirit are healed, then all will be well.

Yesterday, I was talking to a patient whose mom just passed away from lung cancer. Her mother died in her arms. I just started crying uncontrollably because that's the way to go, surrounded by your loved ones. When my grandmother was critically ill, unresponsive and basically comatose, my aunts kept telling her "wag mo kaming iiwan! Mauulila na kami!" (Don't leave us! We'll be orphans!), which at the time, I thought was selfish. Here she was, maybe in pain, valiantly clinging to life, because her full-grown children didn't want her to go. Who wants people carrying on like that when YOU'RE ready to meet your Maker and be reunited with other family and friends who've gone before you? An in-law aunt had the sense to tell them to let her go and not cause her any more unnecessary suffering. They finally told her that she could, and she promptly did. It's hardest on the ones who get left behind. The one who passes on suffers the least in this scenario.

Life is hard enough. Death doesn't have to be.