When death throws us a straight ball
Let’s start with the documentary “The End of Life”
The huge clock hangs diagonally under the pale light, and the city skyline floats in the gray sky. In the elongated depth of field are the dark shadows of the ward and the monotonous but tenacious short tone of the vital sign monitor. This is the opening of the film "End Game". There are several temperatureless empty scenes and thick gray tones, making the picture appear to be black and white, covering up the true colors. The film's synopsis says: "Describes how seriously ill patients face the inevitable end, face to face with outstanding practicing doctors, and strives to change the public's view of life and death..."
However, in this group of portrait-like records, I see more about choices and about human nature. The director's narrative is naked and plain, truly recording how several groups of families and individuals faced with end-of-life issues made choices driven by instinct and emotion. The direct narration of the lens language is without elaboration, just like the Chinese splash-ink landscape, leaving more blanks for the viewer to understand on their own.
▲The documentary "End of Life" truly records several groups of families and individuals facing end-of-life issues, triggering contemplation of life and death.
(Image Source:https://images.app.goo.gl/q1NxbXauD2ZcsbZ99)
five life endings
The tug of life and death - Mi, a 45-year-old Iranian woman. During her dying process, her family members were struggling with pain.
When a doctor proposes “hospice care”1My mother, Vicky, was very resistant to the issue. Even if she doesn’t want her daughter to suffer from illness, the word hospice means that death is imminent and defeat is certain. Because of her anxiety about death, pain, and family affection, she resisted reality. Her husband Hamid has been holding out hope that Mi still has a chance of winning. Amidst the perseverance of her relatives, Mi encouraged herself and looked forward to the day when she could take care of herself and walk again, but that day never came.
Ignorant and distorted - Qin used to be a nurse, and in her career of 40 years, she saw other people's lives and deaths. However, when doctors recommended she undergo palliative care2, facing the end of her life, Qin felt confused and distorted. She said to her husband: "I am not ready to receive hospice care yet, because that is the final thing to do in life, as if to mark: OK! It's time for you to go!" However, the professional experience accumulated in the past made her rationally choose to leave the hospital. , returned home and passed away peacefully.
There is no rain or shine - Mr. Chu is 66 years old, an Asian male. He seems to be very open-minded. After moving into the hospice ward, he always quietly lets the nurses feed, take care of, and manipulate him. He often has a faint smile on his face, as if everything has been understood and he is calm and clear about the future outcome.
The fighting warrior—Pei was admitted to the hospice care ward due to the rapid development of uterine cancer lesions. But she chose not to give up and decided to undergo chemotherapy and fight to the end. When the social worker asked her: "How do you know this is the right path?" Pei replied: "You should not do anything that shortens your life." "Every moment is a gift." In her consciousness, fighting to the end, Only by winning more time can you live up to yourself. However, no matter how strong Pei's will was, she passed away before chemotherapy began.
Philosopher's Thoughts - Scola had a profound philosophical conversation with Dr. Miller, who presided over hospice care in the clinic:
Scola: "I can't be friends with death, I love living."
Miller: "The lesson I want you to do is to establish a relationship with death and reduce your fear of the unknown."
Scola: "What's scary is the unknown and the lack of control."
Miller: "Does this unknown refer to the feeling of dying? Or what is death like? Since we can't know and can't change it, maybe we can adapt? The feeling of dying is the problem we have to solve. We can learn to deal with the mystery of the unknown. .
Scola: "Maybe trusting a bit. Death can be bad, or it can be good."
Because she "believed more," Scola faced the end calmly and passed away peacefully at home with her husband by her side.
Five endings, five choices; either fighting hard, being calm, being confused, or being sober... In the face of death, do we really have the power to choose? Ideally, people seem to be able to find a way out by playing chess with death, but what about reality?
The process of decline is not an evenly matched battle, it is a part of the life process. From the moment of conception, life and death dance together. Our choice is just how to face the difficulties, face the reality, and end it happily before death comes.
What do you want in life and death?
"Suffering comes from the gap, the gap between the ideal and the real world." (Dr. Miller)
"End of Life" attempts to view "hospice care" from three different perspectives: patients, family members, and doctors, recording different standpoints and reactions to important matters of life and death.
Rationally, people can accept death as a part of life; however, emotionally, it is natural to avoid death. As Dr. Pantilai said in the film: "Those who think about how to die are healthy people. Once they get sick, they only think about how to live."
Clinging to hope is what every critically ill patient thinks about. Most of the patients often lack an urgent sense of reality when declaring "dying". From cognition to internalized acceptance is a slow and difficult process. Death can only become a reality at the moment when it actually comes. Therefore, we see the unrealistic expectations of patients; we see the emotional struggles of family members. When the gap between the desired state and the actual development becomes wider and wider, the pain will become deeper and deeper.
One of the interviewees, Dr. Miller, is the main person in charge of the Zen Hospice Program in San Francisco. He said: "In the face of serious illness, some people are calm, while others cannot accept it. Only by no longer comparing the past and the present can we adapt to reality, live with the disease, accept the disease, cope with all factors beyond our control, and reinvent ourselves."
Therefore, the principle of "hospice care" is to look directly at difficulties, face pain, accept vulnerability with frankness, support with love in communication, and return to the most basic dignity of human beings and life.
The 19th century doctor Edward Livingston Trudeau wrote on his epitaph:
"To cure sometimes, to relieve often, to comfort always."
State the limitations of medical treatment simply and directly. Medicine is not a way out of life and death, nor is it the mountain of confrontation. Saving lives and healing the wounded is meaningful only under "reversible" conditions. When health enters an "irreversible" state, should we let go of unrealistic expectations and think carefully: What is the most valuable happiness to ourselves? Physical life must have an end. What do I want? What is the ending I want? Only by preparing for everything can you avoid pain and regret.
Don't think about it, forget it
Before the Lunar New Year in 2011, I suddenly received a call from my family in Taiwan. My sister said that her 90-year-old father had acute pneumonia and his blood oxygen concentration was only 60%. The doctor asked if you would like to be intubated? This life-and-death decision is really difficult to make, so I asked for my thoughts.
It was the middle of winter, and standing in front of the window watching the wind blowing through an old tree in the courtyard made me shiver. A passage from Ecclesiastes comes to mind: "A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted." (Ecclesiastes 3:2)
I heard my dry voice: "That's enough, intubation is too painful."
Perhaps due to degeneration, my father suffered from severe persecutory delusions in his later years and was manic and depressed all day long. In terms of his mental state, in addition to the pain of intubation, there is also the feeling of being unable to control himself and being unable to avoid fear. Could the life that continues like this be what he wants?
Because of my decision, my father was not intubated. Two days later, when I was flying across the Pacific towards him, I received the news of his death at the Gukeng Toll Station. At that time, he was in Chiayi Rongzong, 20 minutes away on the expressway, which became a lifelong regret. In addition to not being able to meet each other, this regret also includes that I will never know whether the decision I made for him was the choice he wanted?
Years later, when I think about my father, I often fall into deep self-blame, and my mind is filled with questions that I will never get answers to: Did my decision deprive him of the chance to live? ⋯⋯If at first ⋯⋯If ⋯⋯. These thoughts are often entangled and entangled.
Therefore, please do not leave our end-of-life plans and decisions to our loved ones, because it is too heavy.
Chinese culture’s view of life and death
The issue of life and death often appears in philosophical speculation. However, the Chinese are taboo about life and death. This phenomenon, in addition to human nature to seek good fortune and avoid evil, can also provide some clues to the Confucian culture that has influenced us for thousands of years.
The Confucian view of life and death is worldly. Confucius said:
"If you don't know life, how can you know death?" It means "If you don't know how to live well, how can you talk about what happens after death?"
For Confucianism, "life" is the core, and most theories revolve around "what to do in life." It is believed that people must create value that "affects society" before survival and death are meaningful. Therefore, we pursue the three immortalities of "establishing virtue, establishing merit, and establishing reputation." It can be said that Confucianism is "realistic" and affects the attitude of later generations to avoid talking about death and the unknown.
Secondly, the thoughts of Buddhism and Taoism have the greatest influence on the Chinese people.
"Zhuangzi: The Pian of Joy" tells a story: Zhuangzi's wife passed away. Huizi went to express his condolences and saw Zhuangzi singing with drums and basins. Zhuangzi talks to Huizi about the death of his wife:
"... She was initially lifeless; not only was she without life, but she also had no form; not only was she without form, but she was also without breath. In a blur, she underwent changes to produce breath, and then changed to form, and then changed to produce life. . Now it is changing and dying again, just like the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter..."3 Zhuangzi regarded life and death as the changing of the four seasons. This concept is similar in meaning to the Buddhist concept of "creation, residence, destruction, and emptiness."
In the later development of Buddhism and Taoism, the two realms of life and death were also derived.
Their main differences are: Taoism advocates that human life is composed of vitality, and the body is the support of the spirit. To get rid of death, we must pursue longevity and health and become immortal physically. Buddhism, on the other hand, advocates that the four elements are empty and everything is an illusion. The goal pursued is "Nirvana", returning to chaos and nothingness to escape the cycle of life and death.
However, is life really born from nothingness and returned to nothingness?
The 14th Dalai Lama wrote in his "Book of Life and Death": "The formation of a world system depends on many causes and conditions. Causes and conditions themselves are phenomena caused by causes. These phenomena must be caused by the creator god... .4
Many religions arrive at the same goal through different paths, and ultimately return to the core: "There is a creator God." The Creator God is in charge of the laws and mysteries of all things. Issues of life and death must be returned to God before there is a way out.
Christian "Living to Death"
For Christians, the issue of life and death is the issue of sin, because the wages of sin is death.
At the beginning of the creation of the world, God created man in His own image, and He created him as a living being with spirit. In His plan, He wanted to bestow eternal life on man. But Adam ignored God's command, obeyed Eve, ate from the tree of good and evil, and brought evil into his life. The ability to distinguish good from evil allowed him to recognize evil and know how to do evil, and sin entered the world from him.
After Adam sinned, he did not die immediately. Instead, he became estranged from God and avoided God. He left God's eternal light, submitted to the power of death and gradually declined, and the corruption of human nature continued from generation to generation. But at the beginning of man’s creation, God’s breath was in man’s breath. Man knew eternal life in a dark way, but was unable to obtain it because of the barrier of sin and the power of death. This also resulted in pain and fear.
But transgressions are not as good as gifts. God loves the world and has prepared salvation for people: He gave his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice with His blood to atone for the sins of the world. When Jesus died on the cross, the curtain of the Jerusalem temple was torn from it. The barrier between God and man was broken, and man could return to God again because of the precious blood of Jesus. Jesus, who was resurrected three days later, shows us that we cannot be imprisoned by death and that eternity is born toward death, giving Christians the assurance of being free from the power of death.
Therefore, the most important thing in a Christian’s outlook on life and death is: we must return to God and be willing to “accept Jesus Christ as our Savior” so that we can defeat the devil who has the power of death through His precious blood and His resurrection. , and no longer submit to the power of death.
However, the so-called "freedom from the control of death" does not mean that the body can become immortal without being separated from the laws of nature. Human life has two parts: physical and spiritual. After the body dies, it will still turn into dust and return to nature, but the soul will return to God. As Ecclesiastes 12:7 says, “The dust returns to the earth, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”
For Christians, life is like a stranger, and the destruction of the body is like tearing down a tent on earth so that the soul can return home from its sojourn and return to its heavenly home; from a short journey into the eternal kingdom.
▲Because Christians have the hope of eternal life and eternal peace, death is like the transformation of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, which is the process of returning from a stranger in this life to the eternal home in heaven.
Life is experience, death is return
In "The End of Life", Ms. Scola's passage is interesting.
She said: "Perhaps I should believe a little more." Then she said: "My current stage (dying) is very wonderful." What exactly did she mean by "believe a little more"? Why is the state of approaching death described as beautiful?
There is a lyric that may be used as an extension: "It's easier to be a believer." It's easier to be a believer.
If you have a certain belief in the phenomenon of death, death will not be so scary. My interpretation of Scola’s talk is: I can trust God’s guidance a little more. When she believed that the destination she was about to cross was not the final destination, and experienced God’s comfort and presence during this journey, “wonderful” was naturally her heartfelt praise.
Life and death are profound subjects, and no dead person can come back to tell us the "reality" of death. The rich man in Luke's Gospel could only suffer in Hades, but could not come back to warn his brothers. But through various means, including the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God reminds the world of the reality of death and the possibility of eternal life. It also allows us to see that the beliefs we choose will take us to different shores.
If people want to be responsible for their own lives, they must find a physical settlement and a solution for the soul for the "end".
As Christians, we believe that God, according to His good will, makes the environment an opportunity to shape us, so that we can experience God and His presence in our lives. When the time comes, we can put down the labor of the world and rest happily. Therefore, many Christian obituaries are written as "celebrating the life of the deceased"; at funerals, there is more remembrance than mourning, and blessings instead of sorrow. Because for Christians, death is the process of returning from a sojourn in this life to an eternal home in heaven. They know for sure that life has the hope of eternal life and that there is eternal peace with God.
Face death, recognize and accept the limitation of physical life, and learn to count our days, so that we can cherish and actively face every moment of life and create more meaningful value. As Paul said, "For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (Philippians 1:21)
So when death throws a straight ball at us, swing hard at it! Maybe hit a nice home run.
Note:
1. Hospice, usually provided to patients at the end of the disease. It advocates caring for patients in a peaceful and gentle manner and providing social, psychological and spiritual support so that they can improve the quality and dignity of life and die more peacefully.
2. Palliative care, also known as palliative care, is an extension of hospice care. The purpose of palliative care is to provide integrated care or improve the patient's quality of life and may provide clinical treatment. Hospice care shifts from treating disease to care that supports and relieves symptoms.
3. An excerpt from the original text of "Zhuangzi: Pian Zhile": "...Look at the beginning, it is originally inanimate, not just inanimate, but originally formless, not just intangible, but originally without energy. Mixed among the awns, it changes. There is qi, the qi changes and takes form, the shape changes and brings life, and now it changes and dies. This is the relationship between the four seasons of spring, autumn, winter and summer..."
4. Excerpted from Chapter 3 of "The Dalai Lama's Book of Life and Death".
Yang Xuejing, currently living in Texas, USA, likes history and reading, and believes that the happiest things are walking and relaxing.