When someone we know is nearing death, how do we help them die with dignity? How do we help the family navigate the medical desire to preserve life at all cost? How can we prepare to die with dignity?
I realize my knowledge of some of my congregants is limited to our presence together in our church building on Sunday mornings. This tells me nothing really of the texture and depth of their faith. I don?t see that usually until I?m called to meet them at the hospital?emergency surgery, a child?s accident, complications in illness, imminent death. Then it?s kind of like seeing a woman without her makeup for the first time. I don?t mean to imply my people are heavily ?made up? on Sunday mornings, as if church services are inherently inauthentic venues. That?s false. But illness, suffering, and death reveal us as we truly are?the blemishes in our expectations of life and God, the lines on our hopes, the scars or pockmarks that tell the stories of what we?ve faced.
Preparation for death is made in life, and the sooner the better, for none of us know the day or hour of our death. Most people place human deaths into one of two categories: expected and unexpected. I?ve conducted funerals for both: for the octogenarian whose health ebbed to the point her family was called in to say their goodbyes, and for the child who hadn?t yet learned how to say hello. And I?ve seen the range of response to the prospect of dying, from wild panic to quiet submission. Age has very little to do with it, by the way. I?ve watched older people come unnerved and younger people display remarkable repose with Death standing right behind their shoulder.
I think much of our response has to do with what we believe is actually happening at death. Evangelical Christians believe our deaths are in essence graduations to ?fully alive? perfection in Jesus? presence (what the New Testament calls ?glorification?). So then death is not something to be feared or dreaded, though means of dying may be?and it is only human to experience some measure of anxiety over separation from family and friends if one knows he/she is dying.
We want our family and friends there to serve, care for, and comfort us if we live to experience an ?expected? death spiral (as opposed to death-by-accident or sudden cardiac arrest). Death is inevitable, but dignified death is not. Indecision, squabbling among family members, prolonging life in illness via medical means solely due to fear, guilt, and the inability to say goodbye, or the subtly self-centered heroism of ?I won?t give up on you? conspire to stress and burden the death process needlessly. Some families never recover from the relational wounds they put on each other ?back when Mom was dying.? We can reduce that stress now for family and friends by making our wishes and expectations plain (unambiguous) and known (communicated). For instance, my wife knows (and it?s stipulated in our will) that I don?t want to be kept alive by artificial means?such as a ventilator or feeding tube or more drugs?if to the best estimate of medical wisdom there really is very little hope of my recovery. Let me go on to Heaven and see my Savior! As Eric Liddell (Chariots of Fire) put it, ?Christians never say goodbye for the last time.?
So a dignified death is not without some measure of preplanning, I think. Thankfully I don?t run into this much, but there are families that simply won?t do it; they won?t discuss the decisions of death like when to resuscitate or whether to be kept ?artificially alive? via medical means or organ donation. It?s almost as if they think they?re jinxing themselves if they bring it up, or that it won?t happen if they don?t bring it up. But this is no service to the family later. It?s not morbidity to bring it up, it?s stupidity if you don?t. Bring it up now so that your family?s grief when you die is the grief of missing you, not the grief of fussing over you.
Source: http://faithinmemphis.com/2011/10/08/a-dignified-death-takes-some-preplanning/
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