Mom's death bares end-of-life issues

Whether we want to admit it or not, American is facing more than just a financial and health care crisis. We are in the midst of a spiritual and social crisis as well. But it is also an opportunity; an opportunity to examine ourselves and come to terms with reality over illusion.

The way we are dying is not only the most expensive line item in health care economy, it is a mirror of our irrationality in facing the facts about life.

My mother never spoke of death. And so we didn't speak of it to her either. As she advanced into her late 80s, we moved from incident to incident involving her care, but decided that any mention of end of life issues might send her into a depression far worse to deal with than where we might have to look for the deed to her cemetery plot.

In her 90th year, after repeated emergency room admissions and hospitalizations and transfusions, a representative of the medical staff asked for a meeting. Blood supplies were limited, and "I need you to make an assessment of your mother's life quality and give due consideration to her and our situation."

I wanted so for my mother to live. She could have had exploratory surgery, but there was no guarantee she would have survived. She was deaf. She could barely manage a few hours in a wheelchair before wanting to be returned to bed. She barely ate.

My mother died being watched over by a hospice team, washed and changed by a caring staff, prayed over by a ministerial team and hopefully soothed by being in the presence of those who took care of her and we loved her. She never mentioned death, but left that to us. And so it seems, it is still being left to us now.

Judith C. Heikes

Glen Ellyn