We have put so much faith in the medical profession and they do not deliver us from death which of course is what we want in our final go round. In fact, the agonies are prolonged for just one more minute of breath before our departure. And our departure is fraught with negatives. The biggest being our inability to leave with dignity.
For then we are stripped of our freedoms, the largest one being the freedom to leave with a mind intact. What we see is a person stripped of a mind still functioning. Is this the purpose of a life? Is death so ominous that a breathing body vacant of spirit is preferable?
Is the memory of a wretched, unthinking cell consciousness preferable to a vibrant picture of a loving personality? Has medical science made it easier for leavetaking when what we as a body are no longer recognizable with a spirit far from the beloved we knew? Does it truly help when our memories of the beloved are trampled with the last months and sometimes years of pain distorting the image of the one we held dear? And leaves us with a distaste and a revulsion for the whole process of dying to make us more skeptical of the medicine which we have asked for?
One more day of what? Of a wretchedness that negates all we tried to do in life? When the body is programmed for long life, it would be best if we also programmed the mind. With so much emphasis on the body, we have left no time to fill the mind with nourishment that would befit a body determined for immortality. The spirit makes the break.
Little by little in the process of dying, the time spent away from the body is longer and longer. The tenuous thread, the linkage to the body for we are responsible for our creations, is held until the heart in desperation stops. And by that time, who we were can no longer be recognized. The civilities, the niceties that we encouraged through our lifetimes have departed with the spirit intact. These are the things that moth and rust do not destroy.
These are what makes us humane, civilized and what is left is Cro-Magnon. A wonder we cannot be recognized but are despised. And are we not then a wonder of medical science? The mind that has been fed, that has been nourished, has the right to what medical science offers. But this mind will also call a halt to procedures that no longer give sustenance but instead steals from it its dignity.
The population at large has not availed itself to study man’s place in the universe. Has not availed itself to what has been offered as guidelines, as nourishment for the spirit. It has not taken what we all should know from the time of birth. That death too is part of the living process, the earth process. And if we have accorded dignity to life itself, then death must be included.
To program a body for long life but starve a mind is criminal. Yet we do it all the time. We are deluged with information as to what to do to keep the body active, to keep it healthy. We are a world of proof that a healthy body, one told that to eat such and such will result in a body that fights diseases, that will be able to withstand everything.
And yet we will meet death, if not in our youth by misfortune, then in our dotage with a body so well taught that it will continue to do what it is we taught it to from day one. Yet the mind, the spirit has subsisted on kindergarten fare. On pablum. And we are left to wonder why mother or papa are not the person we knew and if we loved them so much yesterday, how could they change so fast to being so mean and ugly today?
And where the peace and resolve of the unresolves that are suppose to occur at the bedside? Where the reconciliations when the unable in body are also unable and absent in mind? And where the spirit of the beloved who has nurtured us in ages past, the linkage to what was, as our children are the link to the future of what they were?
The last memories will be the only memories for some and for the others, the last memories will be wiped out as not being part of life. And both are damaged, for unless we rearrange our priorities, reprogram ourselves, rewrite the lesson plans, the last memories will continue to be part and parcel of life in this twenty first century.
What to do? Feed the mind as well as the body. As we stretch the body, we must also stretch the mind. New concepts, old ideas made relevant, religions made vital for those with vested interest, philosophers resurrected and visionary poetry made mandatory.
The desire to learn must be fed to the child along with the graham crackers and milk. It must be made exciting and a vital part of life so that it becomes secondary to breathing.
The why question must be followed by research and never dismissed. There is a lesson in everything and we must be eager to learn. Literature needs to be taught and understood with today’s technology; in today’s high tech world, literature has application in the dailyness of each of us.
Along with the mind’s ability to compute anything and everything, it should also include the mind’s ability to grasp spiritual concepts to enrich the person. It will prove to be practical in the long run. And the result will be characters of substance befitting the body programmed for life everlasting.
Our children should grow up seeing us with an open book in our hands.