There are some things; I will never understand why does God allow intolerable pain and suffering to be inflicted on the innocent, especially small children who cannot understand the nature of death, or even life, let alone after-life. Or have you been able to rationalize all this? If you have, try and explain it to me, because I haven’t.
How do you understand or try to explain to a child dying of cancer, why he is in pain as he cries inconsolably clinging to his mother, begging her to take the pain way? For that has become the increasing face of cancer-among other illnesses these days. That child isn’t told about cancer because he won’t understand it anyway. But it doesn’t ease the pain.
I am happy to be able to say that I am not reluctant to spend time with a dear one who is dying. On the other hand I have never been able to forgive myself for not spending more time with some friends before they died. It wasn’t my fault I didn’t know they were dying because they didn’t tell me. But perhaps I rightly blame myself for not giving sufficient time each week to people who mean so much to me. Perhaps if I had done that, I would have no regrets
I must honestly admit though, that I am among those who find it difficult to watch another person suffering my inability to alleviate pain only makes me feel worse. So it took a lot of courage to grit my teeth and to agree to accompany a concerned friend to pay a visit to Rahat Kada, Pakistan’s only cancer hospice, located on Hali Road in PECHS Society, Karachi (I’m giving you the address so other readers who are interested can visit). A hospice is a place where a dying patient who cannot be cared for at home, is looked after and kept as comfortable as possible till the last day of his life.
Societies tend to facilitate just the living. They quite unnecessarily and wastefully make permanent graveyard for the dead which takes away scarce land from the living. Only recently some have made special concessions for the dying who are in constant and unbearable pain which has reduced them to such helplessness that they cannot be cared for at home.
The surroundings of a hospice are more like a home than an institution and that’s what makes all the difference. The focus is not on curing because both doctor and patient (or the patient’s guardian in the case of a minor) has accepted that the patient cannot be cured. Instead, the emphasis is on keeping the patient comfortable and as free of pain as possible. It doesn’t matter that the pain-killing drugs are addictive. The patient won’t live long enough to have to deal with an addition problem.
And unlike other hospital patients, cancer patients at Rahat Kada aren’t put on a restricted diet. They are allowed to eat whatever they want as long as they can keep it down and their favorite foods are prepared on request, on an individual basis. There are no rigid visiting hours for the immediate family or close friends. Many of whom are regular visitors. The atmosphere was completely relaxed.
My first visit left me shaken. I used to think only people in their advanced years were struck by cancer. Here the patients belonged to all ages, from bewildered one-year olds to octogenarians. It was particularly painful to watch the mounting pain of young children.
Yet most of these children were so remarkable. They never resorted to tantrums or created problems because of their discomfort although one would have understood if they did. Their stoicism suggested that an awareness had grown in them of what was happening to them – even while they talked about what they would do once they recovered. Certainly they appreciated and basked in the warmth and support extended by staff and family alike. It would be nice to die surrounded by so much love, I thought.
It is not in our culture to build a room for the dying into our homes. That is unfortunate because the process of long, slow death is a part of the living process. That’s why I’ve decided if I can ever afford to build a house; it will include a sick room cum hospice and no difference will be made between the temporarily sick and the dying. After all, I can be the first dying patient in it and set a good precedent. In the meantime, our society needs more Rahat Kadas all over the place. Not just one in every city, but one in every village, and many more in each urban area in proportion to the requirements of the population.
Even if an adult has learned to accept death, it doesn’t make his pain any less. What compounds a dying person’s pain, physical or mental or both, is when his near and dear ones don’t extend a hand to help him endure.
This is the month that the true Muslim is encouraged to practice true charity and concern for his fellow-men. Some of that charity needs to be directed towards hospices, to Rahat Kada which is the only one, especially now that they are trying to expand their facilities to meet the great demand. Being a charitable institution, they are dependent on your charity. Remember, someone close to you could suddenly need it. Or even yourself.
Acceptance means different things to different people. True, one must learn to accept the inevitability of death, but this does not mean one gives up on a dying person. That person is not dead YET. Is it necessary to revise your behavior towards someone who is dying?
I suspect that most people who avoid the dying do so not because, as is believed, that it is like confronting the possible likeness of their own death, but because they can’t look the dying in the eye and share their sentiments. They only want to share sentiment in a congenial atmosphere. That is one of the greatest human failings. Yet all the dying person wants is for others to be have naturally with him, and if possible, to accept death as naturally after all, death eventually comes to everyone! So what’s the big deal?
It is unfortunate that death is considered only from the religious and sometimes a very arbitrary ethical point of view. But it is much more than that. It is an environmental issue too; it’s just that it is not acknowledged that way. Some ancient peoples in various parts of the world, for example, knew better. Among certain Red Indian tribes in North America, for example, especially when food supplies were very low and would not stretch for all members, the elderly who had led a long life would voluntarily go out into the wild and wait for death, either by starvation or they simply left it to the animals. It was a part of culture. They lived according to their means, those who had already lived a full life being the first ones to give up their place to younger ones.
I don’t think they had a dreaded disease like cancer then, because industrialization hadn’t poisoned the world and now that it has, on would expect that industry pays at least part of the price that people have paid in the form of a profusion of cancers – a result of an indiscriminate poisoning of the air, water and nature with toxic pollutants.
Most emotional and psychological needs don’t change when a person is dying. On the other hand, the needs grow greater as the dying person seeks, in some way or other, to cling to what he finds good in life, whether it is the company and affection of loved ones or getting preoccupied in favorites activities. At least, that’s the way I think I would feel.
The dying appreciates life in all its beauty often discovered too late. That’s what we are supposed to be doing all the days of our lives. But which we are not able to either because one gets into the rat race to accumulate wealth instead of enjoying all the best that comes free and is taken for granted. Or because almost all leaders in the pursuit of power, take such steps that only impose untold suffering and ugliness on the rest of the world.
A minute to consider death, even one’s own, might make a difference. |
