R ecently I had a chance to spend a day with one of my closest friends from law school. Near the end of our time together he shared the story of the passing of his mother whom I had the pleasure of meeting many decades ago. Toward the end of her life she was hospitalized with pneumonia. The doctor told her oldest son that she would not be able regain her strength unless a feeding tube was inserted. Her son decided against the feeding tube on the grounds that his mother had lived a full life — she was then 96 — and that the operation entailed certain risks and might be painful.
When my friend went to visit his mother in hospice he was shocked to find that all her medications had been stopped as well. He asked his brother what was going on and his brother told him that everything was being done to ensure the smoothest most painless passage to the Next World.
“But have you asked Mama what she wants?” my friend asked. The two brothers agreed that they would put the question to their mother together. They sat in her room one either side of her each holding one of her hands while the older son explained the choices that he had made. He concluded by asking his devoutly religious mother whether she was prepared to meet her Maker.
“Well son I don’t think I am — at least not quite yet ” she replied. My friend related that at that moment he felt like jumping up and cheering. Over the next two months his mother proceeded to eat herself out of hospice entirely.
