A GRACEFUL DEATH
May 15, 2005 The Reverend Anne Felton Hines
It was perhaps during my second or third year of ministry that I received a phone call one morning from Virginia, a member of my congregation, informing me that she’d just discovered her husband, Bill, unconscious from an overdose of medications he must have taken during the night. Virginia knew that this would have been intentional on his part, as he’d been telling his family and me for quite some time that he didn’t want to live any longer. He had been plagued by a series of strokes in the past few months, and these – along with his diabetes – had left him unable to walk and barely able to talk. Life no longer held much meaning for him.
Virginia loved and respected Bill, and therefore wanted to grant him his wish; but she also knew that if she called the paramedics, they would be obligated to revive him. So she had decided to do nothing, and let him die. She had called me to ask if I would come sit with her at his side as he died.
My initial instinct was to say yes; but I also suspected that this might open me, and even the church, up to some liability. I told her I needed to get some advice from colleagues, and that I would call her right back.
I was fortunate enough to be able to immediately reach the two colleagues I figured would have the greatest wisdom about such matters. The first advised me to go ahead and sit with the woman – that I and the church would probably be immune from any criminal liability because of the “confessional” aspect of my profession; this act would be viewed as part of my pastoral role.
The second colleague responded slightly differently. “Are you crazy?!” he said. “If you go over there while her husband is still alive, and don’t call the paramedics, you could be charged as an accomplice to a murder! Don’t even think about doing this!” he warned.
I hung up the phone, and decided to follow my original instinct. I was this couple’s minister, after all; I would simply take the risk and deal with the consequences later.
As it turned out, I didn’t need to deal with any consequences. Virginia called just as I was about to leave my house, informing me that she’d decided it was unfair to put me in that position, and so had called the Paramedics after all. I went over to her home, and stood with her as the Paramedics performed CPR on Bill and took him off to the hospital, where he remained for three weeks before finally dying; he was in a coma the entire time.
Not long after that I listened to another couple describe their sad but healing experience when their beloved dog was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and was suffering increasing pain and disability. They reached the difficult conclusion that to prolong her life was not only fruitless, but cruel as well.
So on the appointed day, the family gathered around the animal at home, and as they gently held and stroked her, and told her how important she had been to them, the veterinarian injected her with a lethal substance. Within the next few minutes, she quietly, with great dignity, died.
As I listened to their story, I couldn’t help but think about Bill and Virginia, and how painfully different Bill’s death had been. Unable to legally choose to end his life, Bill was forced to do it secretly, in the middle of the night, with no one holding him and telling him how much he was loved. And Virginia was deprived of the experience of being by his side in this most intimate moment, holding him and gently telling him goodbye.
We treat our pets with so much more dignity in death than we do our spouses, our parents, or even our children.
Perhaps nowhere in recent times have we seen this more clearly than in the case of Terri Schiavo – the 41-year-old woman who died thirteen days after removal of her feeding tube, and after a long, drawn-out legal battle between her husband and her parents; even the President of the United States and Congress got involved, creating a law just for her – this woman who had been in a “persistent vegetative state” for 15 years – insisting that she be kept alive no matter what.
Any of us who are parents can feel compassion for the grief of Schiavo’s parents, and their need to believe that somehow she would get better. But so, too, can we feel compassion for her husband, who claimed that she would not have wanted to be kept artificially alive in such condition, and who, quite frankly, had a right to let go of her and begin a life without her. As an editorial in the Christian Century said, “There can be grace in admitting death and not demanding that medical science cure all ills.”
Why are we willing to offer such grace to our dogs and cats, but not to those humans who are dearest to us? Why do we take a beautiful phrase like “culture of life,” and twist it to mean keeping someone alive through artificial means, even though every medical doctor has declared the situation to be hopeless? What kind of “life” is that?
It seemed obvious to me that the only reason politicians, including President Bush, became so involved with the Schiavo tragedy was to continue placating the Christian Right. The hypocrisy of creating a special law to ensure she would be kept alive, while ignoring the millions of children and adults unable to receive even minimum health care in this country because of lack of affordability, was inexcusable. Even more appalling was the fact that the President had signed just the opposite kind of law while governor of Texas, which allowed removal of life support from a 6-month-old infant, against the wishes of his parents – in a case where the parents had no insurance and could not afford to pay for the care. Where was Bush’s devotion to a “culture of life” in that instance?
But perhaps what’s most tragic about this case – besides the toll it took on the family and all the other caregivers – is that despite the fact that people began talking about Terri Schiavo as if they knew her (though they’d never even laid eyes on her!), she actually was made into a mere object, and that’s the worst thing we can do to a person. For politicians she became an object on which to play out their power; for the Christian Right she became an object on which to play out their narrow-minded doctrines; and for thousands of American citizens, she became an object on which to play out our fear of death. As another article in the Christian Century noted, “The advocates for sustaining Terri Schiavo’s life weren’t ‘erring on the side of life;’ they were erring on the side of death defiance.”
I believe that it was Bill Schulz, former president of the Unitarian Universalist Association and now president of Amnesty International, who once said that the test of a religion must be how it helps people deal with death. The way to deal with death – our own and that of our loved ones – is not to defy it, but rather to acknowledge it as a natural part of life. None of us likes the fact that at some point we won’t exist – at least not in our present form. We like even less the fact that throughout our life, some of those we love will be snatched from us by death, leaving an empty place in our heart. But the religious response should not be to try to keep death at bay; the religious response must be to help us live and love life as fully as possible, and then, when the time comes to let it go, to help us let it go – with grace and dignity.
As Karen Lebacq, an Ethics Professor at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, once said, “…death is not the last word, nor the greatest evil. Failure to love, to care, to enact justice, to be in proper relationship – that is a far greater evil.”
And so, because we do strive “to love, to care, to enact justice, (and) to be in proper relationship,” it is no surprise that Unitarian Universalism has long openly encouraged its members to talk with our families about our end-of-life wishes, and to write those wishes in a legal document – in California called an “Advanced Directive” – so that what happened to Terry Schiavo will not happen to us.
Nor is it surprising that Unitarian Universalists have gone a step further by openly supporting and advocating for the right to choose when we will die in the event of a terminal illness – in other words, to choose a doctor-assisted death. At our 1988 General Assembly, delegates passed a Resolution called “The Right to Die with Dignity.” It resolved, in part, “…to advocate the right to self-determination in dying, and the release from civil or criminal penalties of those who…act to honor the right of terminally ill patients to select the time of their own deaths.”
It is not surprising that the Oregon law allowing doctor-assisted death grew out of our UU Church in Portland, where the very first person who Dr. Jack Kevorkian helped to die was a member.
And, it is not surprising that one of our newest members, Richard Smith, is president of the local chapter of “Compassion & Choices” – an organization that offers information and support for end-of-life choices. This has been an important issue for Unitarian Universalists for many years – perhaps because we do acknowledge death as a natural part of life, and believe that our lives will be enhanced if we know we can die with some dignity and grace.
When I was in Sacramento a few weeks ago with other religious leaders to promote marriage equality, the one legislator that actually met with my group was Lloyd Levine, a young, dynamic member of the State Assembly. He assured us he would be supporting Mark Leno’s bill for civil marriage for same-sex couples, but said there was another issue he wanted to talk with us about. He proceeded to tell us about AB654 – the “California Compassionate Choice Act,” which he has co-authored. This bill would “authorize any adult who meets certain qualifications and has been determined to be suffering from a terminal illness, to request medication for the purpose of ending life in a humane and dignified manner.”
The legislation affirms that “…dying patients should have choices throughout the continuum of palliative care…,” and that “It is the intent of the Legislature that physician-assisted dying be viewed as an end-of-life option for dying patients.”
This is such a humane approach to dying – one that allows us all the option of a grace-filled and dignified death – a death that can be accepted with serenity and tenderness. It might not have helped my former parishioner until he was closer to death, but it might have encouraged him to remain living until he could be pronounced terminal. You can learn more about this legislation from Richard Smith, and I have a copy of it if you’re interested in reading it.
We do not know, of course, if this legislation will pass; or if it passes, if the governor will sign it into law. You can bet that it won’t be popular with the Religious Right, and even with some religious moderates – though several mainline denominations lean towards choice in dying.
In the meantime, the question of how we die, and who will make that decision if we are unable to make it, is a question that should not be put off, no matter what adult age we are. Most of us tend to wait until we’re in our 70s or 80s before tackling this difficult topic; but let us remember that Terri Schiavo was, I believe, only 26 when she suffered the heart attack that resulted in 15 years of living a life that most of us would not want.
We need to talk with our loved ones about these questions, and complete the appropriate documents that will help ensure that we do not end up like Terri Schiavo. With that in mind, Richard Smith and Robin and Deborah Wilkes will join me for an hour or so after our service today for a deeper discussion about this, and for help in completing Advance Directives. I hope that no matter what age you are, you will stay and participate. As someone who has not faced up to this myself, I know how easy it is to pretend it can be pushed off to sometime in the future. But it can’t, and so I did at least e-mail my kids the other day to say we need to arrange a time to begin this conversation. I need to practice what I preach: That death is not the enemy; death without dignity and grace is.
Marie deHennezel, a psychologist who works with the dying, tells a story about one of her patients – a 25-year-old woman who was dying of cancer. The young woman had had a very hard life – filled with abandonment by parents, prostitution and drug addiction. Yet in the final days of her life, she was somehow able to rise above the pain, and accept her death. DeHennezel tells us that as she sat at her patient’s bedside, the young woman said quietly but firmly, “I am going to die.” She then pulled out the oxygen tubes, and “moved her body into the position women adopt for childbirth.” With her head nestled against deHennezel, this courageous young woman breathed a few final breaths of life, and then quietly and gracefully “birthed” herself into death.
May we always live in love, in care, in justice, and in proper relationship. May we strive to create a world where both life and death are met with grace and dignity. And then, when the time comes to let life go, may we have the courage to let it go, trusting that our love will live on as we “birth” ourselves into death.
May it be so; amen.
© 2005 Anne Felton Hines. All rights reserved.
