Quotes on Aging and Mortality Related Issues
Joan Taylor - In the Light of Dying: The Journals of a Hospice Volunteer |
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Writing on the Subject of: |
Writing on the Subject of: |
Her hospice experience at the bedside of a dying patient: I met these women whom we call little old ladies. I went into their homes and into their lives. I heard their stories and I knew them as unique individuals. Instead of being fully myself looking in on the life of an anonymous stranger, I would become mesmerized until I was no one in particular, digest any human being struggling to fathom the mystery of old age, disease, and death, entering deeply into the life of a very particular human being. I sat with them and was absorbed into their lives. Sometimes I would depart choking from the weight of their grief and depression. I was filled with fear and loathing for the future I solve all too clearly for myself. And I understood the superficial sameness of their lives to the true human sameness that I share with them. The more I saw of the endless varieties of human experience, the more I saw that in the end it doesn't matter so very much. What does matter, and matters very much, is how it's been done, and how it has felt.
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At the bedside of Anna, a dying patient, on the subject of the terror of death we all feel about our mortality: This was not one woman being afraid; this was the essential, final human terror, the terror we spend our lives avoiding and pretending we can prevent. To be born is to know on some level the fragility of human life, and how little control we have over what happens to us. Yet we live acting as if we were powerful enough to stop the hand of death; we take our vitamins and stay out of the rain, we put locks on our doors and money in the bank. Then one day like Anna, we see that our own personal efforts are useless, and that in the end we must turn to forces beyond our rational control, and whether that be the compassion and love of others, or inner spiritual strength, or what some called guide, it is terrifying. Trusting in God may be okay as long as we think we are in control anyway and won't need extra help, but to trust in God, knowing that is all there is, is frightening beyond all imagining. |
