What? The Illinois Legislature is out of session? Already? And here I want them to consider my Respect the Dead Act, requiring all male residents whose parent has died within the past 30 days to show up at a synagogue and recite the Mourner's Kaddish.
Not familiar? You'll have to be, if my law passes. "Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba b’alma di-v’ra..." Or for those who don't understand Aramaic, which is everybody: "Glorified and sanctified be God’s great name throughout the world..." followed by similar sentiments.
What's that? Jews forcing their end-of-life practices upon a gentile world just won't fly? One of the many downsides of being an extreme minority. Along with people feeling less inhibited about setting you on fire based on their own festering moral confusion.
As someone who has hung out on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, site of Sunday's attack, at regular intervals since he was 13, the specter of Jews participating in a peaceful protest, drawing attention to the plight of the hostages in Gaza, being doused with fire, has rattled me more than my usual shiver at the horrors daily assaulting our senses. That could have been me, pausing by the protest to chat up the participants, on my way to the Ku Cha House of Tea, where I bought a pair of cute little tea pigs — round porcine objects intended to keep you company so you don't drink your tea alone...Not familiar? You'll have to be, if my law passes. "Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba b’alma di-v’ra..." Or for those who don't understand Aramaic, which is everybody: "Glorified and sanctified be God’s great name throughout the world..." followed by similar sentiments.
What's that? Jews forcing their end-of-life practices upon a gentile world just won't fly? One of the many downsides of being an extreme minority. Along with people feeling less inhibited about setting you on fire based on their own festering moral confusion.
Then again, odds of my being there are slight lately. My parents don't live in Boulder anymore. We moved them here nearby three years ago, so we could take a more direct hand in their care.
It's a job. My brother handles the endless paperwork. I do my share. There are continual decisions, and not easy ones. For instance, after my father's last check-up, the doctor said he should really see a cardiologist. He's 40 pounds overweight, and should be exercising regularly. This sedentary lifestyle is bad for his heart.
My father is 92 years old and lost in a fog of dementia. I'm not going to force him to do hot yoga. Getting from the bed to the sofa is an excruciating process requiring a walker and close supervision. He's fallen in the past. He's not doing Pilates. Besides, we've tried to make him exercise and it doesn't work. He won't do it.
So nix on diet, exercise, heart procedures. Right decision? Wrong decision? You can discuss — I consulted my brother, my mother and would have consulted my father, too, but he thinks he's still living in Boulder. As it is, he doesn't remember that he just ate lunch and wants to eat it again 10 minutes after he finished.
You know who we didn't consult? Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich. Because we're not Catholic, and thus are not bound to Catholic religious doctrines— at least not those that the Supreme Court hasn't already converted into U.S. law.
Nevertheless, there was the cardinal, lobbying the Illinois legislature to stall a bill that would allow the terminally ill to end their own lives. It's a complex issue, with the possibility of abuse. It's not personal to me, because it could never apply to my father: he has no rational discernment, no volition, and would agree to anything for a cookie. So he could never make a life-ending choice, beyond his refusal to exercise.
Another Jewish superpower, however, is knowing that it's not all about me. You might have a fully-lucid parent dying in agony. And they, and you, and all that is moral and decent, might cry out for a way to shorten this pointless suffering.
To continue reading, click here.
The Catholic hierarchy behaves as if we still live in Europe of the 1200s, when the church made all the laws & even the kings had to follow them!
ReplyDeleteWe don't live that way & the 1st Amendment means, the church needs to keep out of government & we, the people will not bother the church!
After all what's good for the goose is good for the gander!
I have to jump in after reading the comments to remind everyone it's not just "Conservative" Catholics rabidly against many of these "religous-based moral health" laws. Go to the bible belt, read religious histories and you'll see a shared long line of "Conservative" Protestants leading the charge. (I wish everyone would stop calling them "Conservative". They are "Reactionaries".)
DeleteMy wife's brother is 86 and has had dementia for quite a few years. His wife and his sons are going through hell. She's his nurse and his caregiver. They stay home, and they don't get around much anymore.
ReplyDeleteSometimes he doesn't know who his wife is, or he thinks he's a kid again and that his grown sons are his cousins. Doesn't recognize my wife at times, either...his kid sister.
She brings him oversized picture books, the ones for kids. He spends hours going through them, and they keep him happy. Nobody else is. His family soldiers on. We help whenever we can.
Unfortunately, due in part to the Catholic opposition, the bill that would have allowed Medical Aid In Dying in Illinois, was never called for a vote in the Senate despite it having passed in the House. So for at least another year, Illinoisans will not have the option to choose a dignified death because the Catholics somehow think suffering is dignified. As someone who was raised Catholic, positions like this just push me further and further away from having any respect for the church.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely
ReplyDeleteThanks for this. As usual, expressed better than I can myself.
ReplyDeleteMy family made a similar decision to yours re: your father. My 83 y/o go-to-Mass-everyday-damn-day Catholic father fell ill quite suddenly: the option was to have him undergo abdominal surgery and face months of rehabilitative nursing-home-based physical therapy, which he would hate (and perhaps outlive?) -- or let him go. My mother and large crew of siblings chose the latter, following instructions he had executed some time earlier, and knew this would be his choice were he not sedated. We did not need a priest (or Cardinal) to interfere.
"To let him go" is quite a different thing from "assisted suicide," at least in the eyes of the Catholic Church. Sometimes, ofttimes in religious tenets, it is deemed necessary to split hairs. Perhaps that's hypocrisy. Or a means of facing realty by contorted reasoning that works at least some of the time.
Deletejohn, a lapsed seminarian
The irony is that just having the option available, even if its not taken, can improve end of life. At least for those who are aware and decisional. To be able to choose "soon, but not today" allows the focus to shift to life that still has some (albeit small) aspect that is worth living.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very important point. Well stated.
DeleteYES!
DeleteMany years ago I read a book in which one of the characters dies. I do not remember the book, or if the charterer took his own life but i do recall him drowning in a swimming accident.
ReplyDeleteFor a number of reasons, the story has stuck with me. What has stuck with me most, is that the people who suffer the most and have to deal with death more than anyone, are not the people who die, but those who live.
Even from the comments I can see how much pain, suffering, and work is laid at the feet of those who care and care for others. I don't want to give the impression that the suffering of those who ail isn't suffering, but if they are lucky their suffering will end a long long time before ours.
There are rules and laws that we must follow as Americans. These should superseded your own personal beliefs. However you exist beyond those laws and rules is for you and your maker to decide. Do not tell me what I can and cannot do beyond the laws of the land and I will not do the same for you.
The first Amendment, The Establishment Clause, and the Free Exercise Clause are clear. Any Republican or religious zealot telling you otherwise is a liar and anti-American.
Don't believe me, read them yourself.
First Amendment - https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/
the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause - https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/about-educational-outreach/activity-resources/first-amendment-and-religion
What immediately comes to mind, from your opening sentences, is "Ordinary People ", which was a highly-acclaimed Oscar-winning 1980 film, directed by Robert Redford. The screenplay is based on the 1976 novel by Judith Guest.
DeleteThe film follows the disintegration of a wealthy family in suburban Lake Forest, following the accidental death (by drowning, in Lake Michigan) of one of their two sons--and the attempted suicide of the other. It starred Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Judd Hirsch, and Timothy Hutton.
Saw it when it came out, with my first wife, and it was quite disturbing.
Have had opportunities to watch it again. Have always taken a pass.
ooooh. I also thought of "Ordinary People" after reading Double D's post. I suppose the film is, indeed, somewhat disturbing because it depicts mental illness so accurately. But I thought it was an excellent and important film because it brought to light something that was often kept a family secret, to the detriment of everyone in the family.
DeleteI was working at Lutheran General Hospital at the time the movie came out in Sept 1980. I knew about the film during its production because a psychiatrist who worked at both Forest Hospital in Des Plaines and Lutheran General served as a consultant. Timothy Hutton attended an outpatient adolescent psychiatric program at Forest Hospital for a week, as a patient, to prepare for the role. (this would be a huge privacy violation today, and not allowed). But a lot of care was put into making this movie accurate, which is why it probably disturbed.
What disturbed ME about the movie was that Mary Tyler Moore did such an incredible job as the cold, aloof (and ashamed) mother, which was a huge departure from her usual roles to that point. And then.... one month after the movie came out, MTM's only son died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at age 24, which felt way too much like life imitating art. After what seemed like forever, the autopsy results concluded the death was accidental. but i found the parallels during the time of uncertainty very disturbing.
As an aside, I wanted to make a distinction between suicidality and the wish of a terminally ill person to end their life. The motivations (and usually the thought and planning) are different. I agree the outcome is the same, though.
With MAGA actively dragging us back to 1950, we sure don't want the Catholic church greasing the skids.
ReplyDeleteI don't think they're taking us back to the 1950s. I think they're taking us back to a new time that lies somewhere between 1870 and 1930s Europe.
DeleteNo civil service and unbridled Fascism.
Good point. They may have there eyes on the Gilded Age, but I guarantee they have no clear understanding of what it was.
Delete"their"
DeleteToo right is two air.
The years on either side of 1900. But Agolf is no McKinley.
DeleteAnd those who've ever cracked a history book know what became of him.
According to linguist John McWhorter, there are today about a half a million people who speak some variety of Aramaic, a far cry from the days of Christ when the language was the lingua franca (or the English) of the day. So, it might be difficult to find an Aramaic speaker for Kaddish, it probably would not be impossible. One could always call Mad Max, of course.
ReplyDeletejohn
john
Suicide is illegal in many parts of the world and once was in the US.
ReplyDeleteI don't know the complete history but I'm fairly certain that this was the result of the judeo Christian tradition and related religions especially Catholics imposing their point of view onto the legal system.
Suicide is legal in the US and in parts of the country assisted suicide is legal.
It is something of a slippery slope when a person who is incapacitated does not want to go on living but is incapable of killing themselves has expressed that if they found themselves in this position they would want no further interventions
Having a doctor or other medical personnel help a person to kill themselves could result in jeopardy for that party.
The state passing a law that someone can assist you in suicide in a very structured circumstance seems compassionate to me.
I've had relatives linger through hospice till it seemed to me that they either OD'd on painkillers or starved to death.
Not very compassionate
My mother who always expressed the desire for no extraordinary intervention at the end of her life made it very clear when facing her imminent death that she wanted every intervention that was available and wanted to resist death at all costs. A very difficult turn of events for my sister and I
So you can have a person who expressed the desire at some lucid point in their life change their mind
I agree that the church should stay out of it except when someone expressly wants to involve their priest or minister in the end of their life and honestly for my own life I have a plan and of life plan that I'm sure would be considered suicide and I hope is successful and goes off without a hitch but sometimes the best plans go awry it's a very difficult circumstance that somehow all of us at some point in time are faced with for a loved one or for ourselves.
We don't often fall like a leaf from a tree.
The end of life laws are a joke. The hospitals around us have ignored signed Advanced Directives/Living Wills for no verifiable medical reason over the objection of the patient, designated advocate and family. They have helpless guinea pigs and make $ through creative expanded billing.
DeleteSeven of the nine Supreme Court Justices have Catholic sensibilities (Gorsuch identifies as Protestant but was raised Catholic and went to a Jesuit High School) Catholics are taught from birth to believe in absolute, unwavering certainties - fertile breeding ground for conservative certainties. I am old enough to remember the great concern that Catholic public servants would be more loyal to the Church than to national ideals and laws, making it difficult for Catholics to gain positions of authority in government in my youth. That has obviously changed. The power of the conservative Catholics on the court to mold the laws of the land to reflect their certainties makes my blood run cold. I marvel that conservative Catholic leaning of the Supreme Court is not mentioned more in discussion of influences on the Court. Alito and Thomas in particular seem to believe that their positions are infallible.
ReplyDeleteI was pondering whether to comment on today's column or let it pass. I have frequently been surprised by how frequently and closely my life has paralleled Neil's, and this discussion of our fathers is yet another that hits close to home.
ReplyDeleteOur mother died unexpectedly in 2011, leaving Dad alone in his 80s in the family house and having to figure out a bunch of life skills in a hurry, especially cooking. He had the presence of mind to set up a will, a trust, and all the other legal niceties put together by the attorney in a big 3-ring binder so that we offspring would not have to figure it out later. He got along fairly unassisted (though with a rich social life to keep him active) until late 2020, when Covid pushed him where we didn't want to go.
He recovered with minimal rehab, but living on his own was no longer an option, so we found an assisted living facility on the North Shore where he was happy and well cared-for, at a hideous monthly expense, but one that he had earned for himself. His mental faculties kept him functional and pleasant in the present. The past was gone.
His choice, back in the early 2010s when he was lucid enough to make it, was a Do Not Resuscitate order, on the theory that when he was that far gone, it would be pointless to continue. In the current legal environment, that was the most specific choice for making it clear that he would go when the time called for it, and that was his decision. That time came on February 27th. Dad was 94.