My father died a few days ago at the age of 65. Less than three months ago, he was as healthy as he had ever been in his entire life. One day, he felt nauseous. Ten days went by and the nausea hadn't gone away. He went to numerous specialists, each one more perplexed than the last. Then, the tremors began, first on his left side. His doctor had him admitted to the hospital for more tests. Frustration grew as each test came back normal, yet the tremors were getting worse. His speech was now being affected. He was scared; we all were.
Five weeks went by from the first moment he felt sick, when the doctors finally came up with a diagnosis. By this time, he was suffering from dementia, which caused him to go in and out of coherence. The disease was called CJD. It's a very rare and fatal brain disease, similar to what is more commonly known as Mad Cow Disease. The only silver lining is that he was too overcome with dementia to truly understand the diagnosis. Eventually, he lost the ability to talk or walk. He couldn't take care of himself. Since he was terminally ill, we decided to take him home under the care of the incredible people at Hospice.
We stood vigil over him for days; friends and family visiting at regular intervals, all overcome with shock and grief. He was beloved by so many people. Occassionally, the dementia broke, only briefly, as we saw him suddenly recognize a friend from work, standing at his bedside. He got so excited to see them. Then, the excitement went away, as quick as it came.
His short life came to an end late last week, with his family at his side; my wife, his two daughters, his wife of forty years and me, his only son. We saw him take his last breath.
During this time, I happened to be reading a collection of essays by the great writer, George Orwell. One of his stories stood out to me at that time, called "A Hanging." I'd like to share a passage:
It was about 40 yards to the gallows. I watched the bare brown back of the prisoner marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with his bound arms, but quite steadily, with that bobbing gait of the Indian who never straightens his knees. At each step his muscles slid neatly into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced up and down, his feet printed themselves on the wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path.
It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full stride. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive.
As I stared down at my dying father, this passage kept returning to me, and I wept. Not only for my the personal tragedy which was happening then and there to my father and his family and friends, but for the tragedy we see every day, throughout the world; the needless killing and endless suffering. My tears were not simply for the deaths of the righteous, but for the wicked as well; for the murderer on death row, and the terrorist who reached a point of self-delusion or hopelessness which allowed him or her to blow themselves up in a market full of innocent shoppers. At that moment, all life was precious to me and I understood, all too well, what Orwell was talking about when he wrote of the "unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when in full stride."
My hope, for those reading this, is that you take a moment, and think about how precious life is, and how easy it has become to accept so much death and suffering around us. We've become anesthetized to it, and that's all the more tragic.
UPDATE: Sincere thanks to all of you for your condolences. It means a lot.