It has taken me several days to write a response to Dr.
Richard Smith's post entitled "
Dying
from Cancer is the Best Death". The reason it took me so long is that
I wanted to try to understand where Dr. Smith was coming from instead of
viscerally reacting to his piece with incredulous disbelief.
I am not sure that I have fully sorted out my
feelings, but I will attempt to add my two cents to the discussion which has exploded
in the online space of social media since his piece was published last week.
First, I commend Dr. Smith for putting his ideas
in writing, because I suspect he is not alone with his romanticized version of "death
by cancer". I have no idea of his personal or professional story, the
deaths he has witnessed, the road he has traveled with loved ones, but I can
speak to my own experience and the cancers that were not "gentle" to
my family members. I return again and
again to Dr. Smith's romanticized belief that once one has been diagnosed with
cancer, you will have a period of time when you can revisit your life, repair
relationships, travel, and reconnect with those things that gave you meaning, put
your financial house in order and somehow when you have completed these tasks
to your satisfaction, rest and call it a life. This may be true for some, but many
who receive a diagnosis of cancer are not afforded this gentle trajectory.
What Dr. Smith fails to acknowledge is the suffering that
often accompanies a death from cancer. I am not simply speaking of adequate pain
management for physical pain, but the existential suffering that often occurs
with a death from cancer and other life-limiting illnesses. This cannot be
palliated by a good dose of morphine and a shot of whiskey as Dr. Smith
suggests. I have witnessed my dad, an
esteemed educator and academic, lose what he loved passionately-- the ability
to speak, write, read, and communicate
with others as a malignant brain tumor robbed him, piece by piece, of that which gave his life meaning. This is
suffering. I have witnessed my 14 year
old son, diagnosed with an aggressive bile duct cancer, lose the things that
gave his life purpose and meaning-- friends, playing the guitar, athletics, piece
by piece as his life contracted, smaller and smaller, until his death. This is suffering.
Dr. Smith opines that cancer is the best way to die. I hope each of us will use Dr. Smith's essay
as a rallying cry, a wake-up call, to the fact that perhaps there is no
"best way to die" but maybe a "best way to live"... by attending
mindfully to those things that give our lives meaning and hope, in the present
moment. It is only then that we can let
go of striving for "the best way to die".
