IN THE MIDST OF LIFE WE ARE IN DEATH

 

Much of this book is dark and dreadful, and the reader could be forgiven for thinking I must be a miserable old stick, best avoided. Hotly, I refute the allegation!

It is true that I have contemplated death throughout my life, but not negatively. In fact, it has been the spur and stimulus of all my many activities and interests – life is short, enjoy it while you may. If you cannot envisage your own death, how can you enjoy life? Or, to put it another way, it is impossible to live life to its very fullest if you fear death, which is our certain end.

‘It is finished,’ were Christ’s last words from the cross. His life’s work was done and he could say ‘Into Thy hands I commend my spirit’.

Old age has been kind to me, so far. The years are short and getting shorter.

I look at those I love so much and ask nothing more than to enjoy their company and do all the things I enjoy doing whilst I am still able. The very fact that I know that I will soon (how soon? Too soon!) not be able to do so much, gives these activities an added zing.

 

2007

Clonakilty Ballygarven, Skibbereen, the music of the language sings of ancient Celtic peoples. Ballybunnion, Maudawadra, Cap-poquin, Skull. Only in southern Ireland could such names be found, tiny hamlets existing for centuries amidst the hills, valleys, rocks and endless waterways. How much more beauty can the soul sustain, I mused as I cycled alone, every turn in the road revealing a new vista of sea and sky and estuaries and little islands, home only to seabirds. I sang to myself as I cycled amid the silence and awesome beauty of the Kerry coastline.

It had been a long day, and some of the hills had been daunting. By five o’clock I was getting tired and looking forward to the hotel, a shower, and a good meal. The hotel was beautiful, perched on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic, about as far west as you can go, and it had every facility, including a gym, saunas, a massage room and an open-air swimming pool. I enquired about a massage and was told I would have to wait half an hour. Never mind, thought I in my folly, I will have a lovely cool swim first. The pool gleamed blue in the evening sunlight. I was hot and tired after a long day cycling, and jumped straight in.

I was dead when they pulled me out.

Apparently, I had been spotted lying at the bottom of the pool, not moving, and two men had dived in and got me out. They held me upside down by the legs, and shook me vigorously to get the water out of my lungs. Someone rushed into the massage room to alert the therapist, who came immediately. Whilst I was upside down, she thumped my back hard repeatedly. Then they laid me down, and the therapist started manual compression of the rib cage, forcing the heart to beat again. At the same time, someone else started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, forcing the lungs to function. They continued in this way until a weak pulse could be felt.

Half the residents and staff of the hotel were now crowded round. I was breathing and coughing, but still unconscious, so someone suggested carrying me into the hot sauna, to raise my blood temperature. This was no doubt a good idea, because the evening air was chilly, and I was wearing only a swimsuit. It was in the sauna that I came to. I remember finding myself lying on a wooden bench, surrounded by steam, and the hazy faces of people around me. A doctor was leaning over me, listening to my chest with a stethoscope.

‘Where am I? What happened?’ I enquired.

‘You had a lucky escape,’ the doctor said.

 

*

 

I was indeed lucky, and millions of people can say the same – their lives have been saved by modern medicine, for which we can be deeply grateful.

Yet life remains finite, and we go through agonies of indecision about whether or not to prolong it. Should drugs and treatments be continued or withheld? Is it futile? To resuscitate, or not? Finally, should euthanasia be legalised? These matters are so complex and so dreadful that they blow the mind. It is like being out at sea in a thick fog, and the compass fails. We don’t know in which direction to steer the boat.

The great and good of the professions debate these issues endlessly. But that is not enough. Everyone must enter the debate, because we are all involved; and this is where most people fall lamentably short. It is well nigh impossible to talk to anyone about death, I find. Most people seem deeply embarrassed. It is like when I was a girl and nobody could talk about sex. We all did it, but nobody talked about it! We have now grown out of that silly taboo, and we must grow out of our inhibitions surrounding death. They have arisen largely because so few people see death any more, even though it is quite obviously in our midst. A cultural change must come, a new atmosphere of freedom, which will only happen if we open our closed minds.

I have the impression that things are already changing. Around 1975 I spoke at a sixth form college. The subject was, ‘Should drugs and advanced medical treatment be given to an old person who is dying?’ When it came to questions and debate, there was an ominous silence. Twenty boys and girls gave me some very suspicious looks, making me feel uncomfortable. When it came to a response, every one of those young people said that, of course, all available treatment should be given, no question about it, there was nothing to debate. I remembered my matron’s words: ‘This is a dangerous subject,’ and her caution not to be too free in what I said and to whom, because I would be misunderstood.

Last year, 2009, my granddaughter, who is doing A-level philosophy, religion and ethics at school, asked her course teacher if I could address the class on the same subject. Afterwards, about twenty-five young people couldn’t stop talking. Debate, opinions, examples were thrown back and forth. The bell went, it was the last lesson on Friday, and still they couldn’t stop. I seem to remember we overran by about twenty minutes, until the caretaker came in to say he was locking up. This is the healthy attitude, and our hope is in the young. My thanks to staff and pupils of Townsend C of E School, St Albans.

However, the dilemma remains. Life used to be so much simpler, as it still is in many parts of the world. Birth, life and death were seen as part of a great whole, ordained by God. This has largely been eroded by the steady decline in faith. But it seems that Man is a believing animal; we absolutely must believe in something outside ourselves, and preferably something beyond our understanding. Having lost faith in God, we place it uncritically elsewhere. Huge numbers of people now cling to faith in science, which, it is thought, can be controlled.

This is the root cause of all our problems. The dilemma has not come upon us through science or medicine, per se, nor even from social attitudes to death. It has crept up on us through lack of faith, and hidden between the lines of this book is a plea for a return to the simple understanding that life and death are in God’s hands, not ours.

Reverence at the time of death used to be accepted without question. All religions require it. ‘A peace beyond understanding’, the Christian church calls for; Buddhists see death as the gateway to Enlightenment, and demand calmness in death; reincarnation is central to Hinduism, and the laws of Karma teach death as a step towards Nirvana; ancient Jewish law has described death as ‘God’s kiss’; Moslems see death as part of Allah’s plan for mankind, against which it is wrong to struggle. Death and religion are closely linked.

In the secular, and increasingly atheistic age, in which we now live, this ancient teaching has, to a large extent, been denied and discarded, and we find ourselves with a medical dilemma beyond parallel.

I find it hard to understand the mind of the true atheist, who believes that life is nothing more than a series of electrical impulses and biochemical reactions to chemical stimuli. Presumably, such thinkers see death as the worst thing that can occur, because it means the end of everything. Therefore (logically), maintaining the continuance of physical existence, under any circumstances, is entirely justifiable.

But I do not see things that way. Death may be the end of what we presently call ‘life’, but it is not the end. There is another dimension, a spiritual life that we are all caught up in and cannot escape, which is eternal. I believe that we come from God, and return to God. The awesome mystery of birth and death, both of which I have handled, convinces me of this truth. As the physical body grows weaker and draws near to death, the soul yearns, with unspeakable longing, to return to God, the source of life.

I have seen this many times, and one cannot say that it is consciously ‘longing for God’. It is yearning for the peace and contentment that enfolds the dying body and calms the dying mind, and, in my view, this comes from, and is part of, God. It is ‘a peace beyond all understanding’, to which we, as human beings, are all entitled.

 

LAST THOUGHTS

 

Only six months after this book was first published, I was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus and with secondaries in the bones. I want anyone reading the book to know that I am completely at ease with the diagnosis. I have no fears, no worries, no regrets. I do not try to struggle against this – I accept it as part of life. I shall be sorry to leave my dear husband and this beautiful world, but I do not fear what is to come. In fact, I am grateful, very grateful, because we all have to die, and it could be so very much worse. As it is, my family will see probably only a brief period as the cancer takes over. At the moment, I feel only weakness. I can see death coming, but if it is to be no more than weakness increasing day by day, then it is no bad thing.

I feel that everything is slipping away from the periphery, which is rather nice. There are, I am sure, hundreds of things I could, or should, or must be doing, but they become less relevant as the days go by. They just slide away. As everything slides away, what I am left with is faith and love. Faith, which has been the cornerstone of my life, and love, which has been always with me. Love of my husband; our love for each other; love of my daughters and my grandchildren, and their surpassing care of me. And overall, and around all, the love of God. Thanks be to God.

Jennifer Worth, April 2011

‘Lord, grant us a quiet night and a perfect end,

so that we who are wearied by the changes and chances

of this fleeting world

may rest upon Thy eternal changelessness’

 

— The Anglican office of Compline from the Book of Common Worship

 

APPENDICES

 

APPENDIX I

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