Fierce Grace and the Dying of the Light

by Robert Wilkinson

It is a fact of life that we all have bodies that die, and with that our feelings and minds as well. Except for the Masters of Yoga whose consciousness transcends the sickness, old age, and death that the Buddha offered as our ultimate fate, we all confront our mortality at some point in our lives. (And even Masters confront the mortality of our loved ones.) Today I offer you two remarkable statements on this difficult but universal subject, one a documentary on the remarkable Ram Dass, the other an article by a physician doing "end of life" care.

I suppose the reason these impacted me in such a personal way is that I am of the generation whose parents are still alive, but aging quicker than they ever have before. It seems that with age many things are accelerated, requiring that we not take certain things for granted as we did when we were younger.

While my parents are still able to take care of their lives and all they require, I know of many who are struggling with the deep feelings that result when trying to assist their sick and/or dying parent(s). Besides the family dynamics that always seem to intrude in the process of care-giving, there are the limitations of time, or money, or availability of therapeutic resources, or the energy to balance one's own life while caring for another. This post offers no cures for these dilemmas, but we shall explore two powerful approaches to the problems of aging and our mortality.

I recently had the pleasure of viewing "Fierce Grace," a compelling biography of Ram Dass. Once and still a Spiritual Icon for a generation, he was a noted psychologist and Harvard professor who found his way to his Guru in India which changed his life forever. I had the privilege of hanging with him back when I did events to raise big bucks for his Seva Foundation, a worthy endeavor helping thousands in miraculous ways. He had a stroke a few years ago and so doesn't tour much any more, but this documentary makes it clear that his heart is still as big as the Sun.

Since he's someone who really is as genuinely human AND consciously spiritual as it gets, I wholeheartedly recommend viewing this film, or revisiting it if you've already seen it. It's powerful, poignant, compelling, and ultimately uplifting. It demonstrates that regardless of how our bodies may fail us, we can embrace BEING our Higher Consciousness in ways that transcend the suffering of the body.

The other theme I offer you today is a written piece via the Washington Post. It is deeply moving in its own way, just as real as "Fierce Grace" but focusing on those who are not Ram Dass, and the problems and issues of being an adult caregiver to an elderly parent who is on their way out. The article by Craig Bowron, a physician in Minneapolis, is titled The Dying of the Light - The Drawn-Out Indignities of The American Way of Death, and is as strong a piece as I've ever read. Here's a part of it:

... never before in history has it been so hard to fulfill our final earthly task: dying. It used to be that people were "visited" by death. With nothing to fight it, we simply accepted it and grieved. Today, thanks to myriad medications and interventions that have been created to improve our health and prolong our lives, dying has become a difficult and often excruciatingly slow process....

.... Staring at his 230 pounds stretching the length of the bed, I wonder how difficult it must be to care for him. To transfer him to a toilet or a chair requires the use of a Hoyer lift, a gigantic sling that's wrapped around the patient and attached to a mobile mini-crane. Fully suspended, he looks like a massive baby being delivered by a giant stork. The contortions and gymnastics of getting him slung up and moved must drive him wild with arthritic pain.

Though I reviewed the patient's chart before going into his room, I can't recall seeing what nursing facility he had come from. So I ask the nurse. She tells me, unbelievably, that he has come from his home, where his son cares for him. Later in the day I place a call to this Clark Kent, this Superman in disguise.

The son answers with soft echoes of his father's Louisiana brogue, and I ask him how in the world he manages to take care of his dad. He replies that for one, it's all he does, a full-time job, and moreover, his experiences in Vietnam numbed him to some of the intimacies of caring for another human being. "Once you've shoved some guy's guts back into his stomach, you know, you can get used to the rest of it," he says.

He tells me that his father is wearing out and that it's hard to watch. The arthritis has become quite painful, and sometimes his dad just weeps. Some nights he needs a couple of Vicodin to be able to sleep through the pain. The old man is also spending a lot more time thinking about his wife, who passed away before him. His son thinks he may be ready to die....

From later in the article:

To be clear: Everyone dies. There are no life-saving medications, only life-prolonging ones. To say that anyone chooses to die is, in most situations, a misstatement of the facts. But medical advances have created at least the facade of choice. It appears as if death has made a counter-offer and that the responsibility is now ours.

In today's world, an elderly person or their family must "choose," for example, between dialysis and death, or a feeding tube and death. Those can be very simple choices when you're 40 and critically ill; they can be agonizing when you're 80 and the bad days outnumber the good days two to one.

It's not hard to identify one of these difficult cases in the hospital. Among the patient-care team -- nurses, physicians, nursing assistants, physical and occupational therapists, etc. -- there is often a palpable sense of "What in the world are we doing to this patient?" That's "to" and not "for." We all stagger under the weight of feeling complicit in a patient's torture, but often it's the nurses who bear most of that burden, physically and emotionally. As a nurse on a dialysis floor told me, "They'll tell us things that they won't tell the family or their physician. They'll say, 'I don't want to have any more dialysis. I'm tired of it,' but they won't admit that to anyone else."

This sense of complicity is what makes taking care of these kinds of patients the toughest thing I do. A fellow physician told me, "I feel like I am participating in something immoral." Another asked, "Whatever happened to that 'do no harm' business?"

If we can be honest and admit that we have no choice about dying, then the only thing we do have a say in are the circumstances. Like many nursing home patients, Dorothy was on the cholesterol-lowering medication Lipitor. Why? So that she wouldn't die of a heart attack or a stroke. But don't we all die of something?

Everyone wants to grow old and die in his or her sleep, but the truth is that most of us will die in pieces. Most will be nibbled to death by piranhas, and the piranhas of senescence are wearing some very dull dentures. It can be a torturously slow process, with an undeniable end, and our instinct shouldn't be to prolong it. If you were to walk by a Tilt-A-Whirl loaded with elderly riders and notice that all of them were dizzy to the point of vomiting, wouldn't your instinct be to turn the ride off? Or at the very least slow it down? Mercy calls for it.

This isn't about euthanasia. It's not about spiraling health care costs. It's about the gift of life -- and death. It is about living life and death with dignity, and letting go.

There are other very powerful insights in the article, so I recommend you read the whole thing. The author has even included his email address in case you want to write him.

"Fierce Grace" and "The Dying of the Light" may be uplifting or discouraging, but they definitely open doors for our consideration as we too get old. How we live, and how we die, are two of the most important issues we have as human beings. It is our job to determine the most lovingly wise, and wisely loving, ways to do both of these.

Copyright © 2009 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[cheryl]

dear robert,
two nights ago i dreamt of my parents. my father and mother were both in the nursing home, my dad with parkinson's and my mother with alzheimers (they both did actually succumb to these diseases). in the dream, the nursing home people kept telling me my mother needed to go home, that she didn't need the intense care my dad did. tortured, i kept trying to lift my father (6 feet, 220 lbs) out of his wheel chair so they could go home together. when i woke and realized that it was infact a dream and that they were still gone, the feel of the weight of my father
lingered in my body. i let them go. i miss them. i did the torture dance. thank you for your article. i know they are free now, and wouldn't choose those endings again. best, cheryl

[michelle]

Thank you so much Robert. I had to decide to let my beautiful dog go today, after 13 years together. It was hard struggling with feeling like I should let her choose her own time to die and then deciding whether by refusing euthanasia I was just not willing to let her go. In the end it just felt like the right time.

I can only imagine caring for a dying human family member it must be incredibly more painful. That guy in the article sounds like a true superhero.

[Henry]

Hi Robert.

I quote your first words here:

"It is a fact of life that we all have bodies that die, and with that our feelings and minds as well".

And what's supposed to be left there after a full lifetime inner/outer struggle?. Spiritual condition of some metaphysical essence that is "me" or "you", and not a soap-bubble of scattered energies?.

I know we should trascend Ego, but...should we expect some rewards -or something remaining- from our "individual" works here?.

I think it should be taught in schools, thought few people -or not so few- ask themselves this question when confronted with death.

I will appreciate a lot your opinion on this. In fact, when you do some kind of work, like Life itself being the greatest workplace, you do it for some reason.

Thanks.

[Valerie]

Thank you for these insights- more synchronicity. Every week I go down and see my parents at the assisted living home. Dad just had a valve replaced and is heading eagerly back into his former contented retirement, eating all the crap they tell him not to. He says he doesn't want to live forever... probably since seeing my mother dying IN PIECES, which she is, from Parkinson's. She is a vegetable, gnarled up into a fetal position, has to be fed, diapered, etc. and it's very painful to watch. I keep wondering what is the reason for the prolonged agony of death, and can only come up with one thing. To learn patience. But that isn't good enough, and I pray I don't get what Mom got.

And I'm taking lipitor and blood pressure meds. Keeping my head in the sand and those pharmas in business.

A feel-good movie to watch that helps explain things a bit is "Little Buddha"... I think I have to buy it.

Call me one of the Sandwich Generation!

Peace and comfort to all.

[Robert]

Hi Cheryl - It sure would seem that your parents are very much alive in your subconscious! I figured this article would speak to those who have dealt with these issues, or are dealing with these issues, or will deal with these issues. Aging is a major part of every life, and how we deal with it (both our own and others we care for/about) determines quality of life in ways the young never think of. And yes, freedom from suffering is far better than being trapped in multiple constantly painful frequency zones. I'm glad your parents had you to care for and love them as they checked out. Regardless of what was or was not done, the love you shared is your beacon to unconditional Love, which is our Divine Nature.

Hi Michelle - My condolences on the death of your dog-friend. As someone owned by cats for decades, it's never easy to confront end-of-life issues regardless of the form a loved one inhabits. While I have been forced to bring an abrupt end to a being's suffering, it never sat well with me. I suppose anything that opens our hearts to a greater Love is good in an ultimate sense, though it be painful at the time. I don't know if caring for a dying human family member would be more difficult than caring for a dying beloved pet of many years. They both feel like they would be as painful as our attachment to the living form of our loved one. And I agree that the 'Nam vet who cared for his dad is one amazing man.

Hi Henry - The Love you take is equal to the Love you make. What's left after the Spirit drops the form is whatever conditionally "eternal" sentient Consciousness there may be, existant on one or more frequency zones of Atma-Buddhi non-separateness. The nature of "All-That-Is" is Loving Wise Intelligence, so we must assume that because we're a spark of "All-That-Is," then we also are those qualities to whatever degree we cultivated them in our lives here. I've written about this before.

What's left are the echoes of accumulated actions and non-actions, awarenesses and nonawarenesses we set into motion as thought forms while we apparently acted, felt, and thought throughout our duration in this 4 dimensional field of manifestation. These are karmas that will ripple through our awarenesses as we move through existence on whatever planes we're on. The rewards are the virtues, skills, and awarenesses we cultivate while we're here, since we are a Consciousness that persists throughout space and time. Mozart didn't learn what he demonstrated as a young child in his infancy. Ego may conceal our Truth of Being, but it also reveals our Higher Self by its attractions and repulsions.

Purpose is usually found as we walk the walk unless we deliberately ignore certain signals. That's why I always counsel that we should be making sure to examine where our heads and hearts are at so we have no regrets at whatever point we drop the body. One day we are sure to die, and so we should learn to be fully present here and now so that when the time comes to leave these frequencies of existence, we can experience the awareness of having lived a life full of Love. While our lesser "purposes" change with each lifetime, our greater "purpose" is to learn to BE unconditional Love in the infinite ways Love expresses itself.

Hi Valerie - Your father sounds like a very determined man. My condolences on your mom's travails. It's very sad when a body fails like that, and a being loses the dignity of autonomy. While you may be learning patience, you're also learning a radical compassion by not turning away. You probably won't turn out that way, since each being has their own cross to bear. I found when I took lipitor it made my joints hurt, and it seemed as though I was becoming painfully crippled by inches over months, so I stopped. Definitely will second "Little Buddha," since it's a great lesson on how to get beyond "either-or" thinking. I won't say more so as not to spoil the ending for those who haven't seen it.;-) Sometimes I think life itself is a sandwich, and we're the ones in the middle, surrounded by an apparent past and future, being eaten by time itself. Then I remember that time is the medium of perception by which our consciousness measures our spacial experience, and settle back into being an Eternal in the apparent here and Now. As we were told 55 years ago, "Sh-boom, sh-boom, life could be a dream sweetheart...."

[Henry]

Thanks for your answer, Robert.

I think that this is the matter beyond All-That-Is-Here-And-Now (my stellium in 9th House is always questioning the Final Purpose Here and so with the Afterlife remains, so your words are of great value for me, because my Scorpio Ascendant -I guess- values self-struggle and effort and does not accept easily a "mystical fusion with others", despite triyng to spread Love, that's not always the case in many souls).

And another question is the value of what we do here, because when you hear some atheistic minds they try to convince you that your future is the tomb. I don't feel so, but...it seems that they do.

Thanks a lot for your reflections on this specific topic.

So much that is not yet unveiled...at least for so many people that don't ask themselves the main questions in life -in my opinion-.

[Valerie]

Thanks for your kind words Robert... and omigod another synchronicity. That song has a special meaning for me!! :)