It Was No One Else’s Business

By SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE
sallies@juno.com

Life has been fairly easy for us.

I say that, even given the deaths of our four parents, a brother, and one child.

The way things worked out, we never became sole support, medically or emotionally, of aging parents. Seems as though most of our friends are in that “sandwich” generation now, flat as a slab of processed cheese between parents and their own still needy children.

The loss of a sibling is a little different. The loss of a sibling means that that there is no one to field your poor jokes, or keep secrets, or talk in virtual code. They say you are closer to your sibling(s) than to anyone else, emotionally, psychologically, in taste and preferences, because you’ve lived very similar lives at the same time.

This is vastly oversimplified, of course. People live different lives in different circumstances. And of course there is also position in family; who’s oldest, who’s youngest, the only boy among girls, and on and on.

I’ve thought about it a lot and I would be lying if I said I was terribly sad with the way things turned out. And although I have lost all those listed above, I’ve sensed that my grief varies from one to another among them.

One’s parents ? They are expected to die to before we do. Daddy pulled over the 1948 Dodge on his way to pick up my brother from a basketball game at school. It was a wintry night, and he was terrified of icy roads.

But he didn’t put a ding in the Dodge. It was off the shoulder, hazard lights flashing. He was a good, decent man, highly principled, an outdoorsman, only 65. When they went out to look for him, they found him slumped over the wheel, dead.

My brother was weeks from graduating college when his roommate found him one morning dead from apparent asphyxiation in his own pillow. For years he’d been medicated for epilepsy, and it was presumed that he seized and could not get air.

I think I’ve mourned him most throughout my life. We’d just realized that we really liked each other, and then there were those little code words and facial expressions that mystified others, but we each knew exactly what the other meant. He was very tall, gentle, loved music and was just beginning to discover that you can build your own radio and search the world for music.

And then there was our own middle child, smart, lovable, artistic, musical; best friends with each of her sisters. She died of a rare sarcoma when she was 17 and The National Cancer Institute had run out of trial protocols then at their disposal.

We recognized her as an adult, and it was she who made the decision not to go through more rounds of deadly toxins, becoming sicker and sicker in her vain quest for recovery.

I’m not sure how I chose the above for the week after Easter. Easter was not the inspiration so much as are the lengthy interviews and breast-beating of the Schindler family, Michael Schiavo, and their attorneys. I write this before that story comes to an end, if it ever comes to an end.

As I write, Terri is still alive, barely. Her parents appear informed and certainly well-intentioned for their daughter. One said recently that therapists have actually been able to reverse the damage of patients in a “persistent vegetative state” through exercise and massages.

Forgive me if I’m cruel, but if that is a possibility, why have 15 years gone by with no apparent efforts at rehabilitation?

And what a life for the rest of the family. Terri has a sister, fairly close in age. When this family tragedy began, did her mom help make her prom dress, or take her Girl Scout troop camping? Was her young life wasted too?

If the protesters outside the hospice had any idea the kind of “life” the Schiavos has been, I think they’d gladly douse their candles and turn their energy to helping kids with disabilities or absent parents or serving as hospice volunteers themselves. It would be energy better spent.

Is the Schiavos’ sad experience unusual? Not at all. But how it is handled makes the difference.

The following stories are true:

The well-turned out matron dropped to her bedroom floor while dressing for a local strawberry festival, and was utterly comatose before the paramedics came. Her sons and daughter came, and since the older son was designated trustee of his mother's property, he also sat down with the doctor to make some decisions.

“Mother is 77. How likely is she to live like this?” was the first question.

“Indefinitely, with good care,” came the reply. “On a ventilator and feeding tube and good nursing care, 20 years.”

“And will she ever recognize anyone, or speak?” “No.”

“If we order life support continued, but halt artificial feeding, what will happen?” “She’ll starve to death in a couple of weeks.”

“Will she suffer? Not for a moment.”

He went back and told his siblings, and they agreed to let her go. In a couple of weeks, she slipped away with her usual dignity.

No one called the police. No one called a lawyer. No one held a press conference.

It was no one else’s business.

Although only a teen, the cancer patient told her parents and doctors she wanted to get out of the world of pain and indignity where she had lived for six months. There are more treatments to be tried, the cancer department head pressed eagerly.

“No,” said the girl. “Even if you guarantee success, and you can’t, I’m going to stay home until I die.”

She mostly slept. Sipped water when thirsty. Had to be rolled over and treated for bedsores. Injected with pain meds by every member of the family. And one evening, her dad realized he could not hear her breathing any more.

No police. No lawyer. No press conference.

Dying of cancer, a neighbor was surrounded by his family in his living room, his strained breath telling them the end was near. In the middle of the night, he began to struggle, and even though a Do Not Resuscitate order had been signed, the family felt panicky and called an ambulance. One of the EMTs who responded was a neighbor, and knew both patient and doctor.

“Honor the DNR orders,” the doc said. “Give his family as much comfort as you can, but they’re OK with this too.”

In today’s litigious world, the guys on the medic unit would have had to work the call, injecting him with drugs, pressing against his already frail chest to move air, a tube introduced into his throat.

Instead, we just sat with the family, talking, patting the dead man’s hand, until the Funeral Home got there.

No police. No lawyer. No press conference.

He looked peaceful, and it was no one else’s business.