With all our medical technology, I am
starting to worry we have lost sight of making the inevitable good. Yes, death can be good. We all die, it’s not “optional” as one
palliative nurse pointed out in her lecture. Our culture has so isolated aging and death that dying has now become a terrifying subject. People do behave as if this natural progress of life is "optional" and are often shocked when they are told their loved one has reached the end of his or her life. Never mind their loved one is 95.
Medical technology has, in my
opinion, out-stripped our humanity. Just
because we can does not always mean we should.
Our technology can help and enhance but often, these days I feel we extend
death, and I feel we do this at the bedside more often than we extend
life.
Everyone is going to die, at
least make it honorable and dignified. Comfort and being surrounded by family and friends should be the priority, not extending existence for as long as possible, with tubes, lines, drugs and pain all while in a foreign environment of a hospital.
Just as we should embrace life, so should we embrace death.
