The subject was horses. Actually it was horseback riding, but that’s mostly all about horses, so the subject was horses. I was a young man, and I was hanging around with a small group of friends, and we were talking about going horseback riding. Since neither cowboy nor member of any royal family could be counted among us, one might say there was a paucity of knowledge or episodic understanding in the room.
Except for one guy.
He was a fairly new acquaintance to us all, and one of those types who talked much and knew much and had experienced much, no matter the topic. This guy knew how to ride horses. If the reader chooses to append “ostensibly” to that statement, have at it.
At any rate, we all decided to go horseback riding quite soon. When the day arrived and we sauntered into the stable to mount up, the wrangler-in-residence sized us up with a casual glance. (Note: I hate being sized up that way.)
“Any you fella’s know how to ride?” he drawled. (All wranglers — even those from Stratford-upon-Avon — drawl. Everybody knows that.)
Naturally, we all looked and pointed at the only one in our group who had boasted of his equestrian prowess.
“Yup,” we said in unison. “That guy.”
“Waaay’ll,” the wrangler said with a grin, “that’s really good, cuz’ I got enough horses for each of you, but only if one of you rides Ol’ Buck.”
Cue ominous theme.
One of our group naturally asked the question that now hung like a moldy vapor above our heads.
“So what’s up with Ol’ Buck?”
The wrangler walked out of a nearby stall, leading a very large, rather skittish horse who, apparently, wasn’t wanting to be led anywhere.
“Oh nuthin’, really,” he replied. “It’s just that Buck gets a bit feisty sometimes. He needs a firm hand. Y’know, a rider with some experience.”
“Well, no problem there,” all but one of us chimed in. “Let’s get started!”
Long story, short. First, it turns out our guy with all the experience actually had none. Second, everyone who’s ever ridden a horse for hire knows that the moment you turn their head back toward the stable, it’s all the rider can do to keep Sassafras from breaking into a full-out gallop. Thus, when the stable finally hove into view, we all decided to let the horses have their way with us, and the race was on. When Ol’ Buck, by far the fastest horse in the herd, came screaming past me like a lightning bolt, he decided NOW would be a great time to make a really sharp turn, right across my path, which is what he did. Problem was, Ol’ Buck also decided that it would be an opportune time to unload the sorry-assed passenger who was bouncing and flailing and gurgling all over his back, which is also what he did.
Right in front of me.
I’m sure I squeezed my eyes tightly shut as the horse I was occupying barreled across, over and through the poor, (and now obviously dead), cowboy tumbling through the tumbleweeds. I somehow managed to get my horse stopped and turned, and rode back to the scene of the horrendous and — I was certain — bloody murder. But to my absolute shock, instead of finding a multitude of hoof-pocked parts and pieces, I find what’s-his-face, sitting somewhat upright and dazed in the dirt amidst a small whirlwind of dust wafting about his miraculously undamaged carcass.
Go figure.
I mention that little anecdote to help me address something a bit more serious.
First . . . and maybe only . . . be careful when you say things that make it sound like you think you know what you think you’re talking about. If you care to comment about something, but you have little or no experience in matters intimately or directly related to that something, you may end up sounding, (or looking), like a village idiot. That happens all the time to politicians, but with a modicum of caution and humility, not to mention a smidge of common sense, it needn’t be your own fate.
My point?
In a recent article for The Guardian, Giles Fraser attempted to say something about euthanasia. He begins, “I am, as they say, on the wrong side of the argument . . . I do want to be a burden on my loved ones just as I want them to be a burden on me – it’s called looking after each other.”
Hmm.
While I fully support the traditional, loving practice of caring for one another, (you may reference my February, 2013 piece, “Everyone But You”), and Fraser’s statement as written strikes me as being of the proper, overarching sentiment, which is wanting us all to look after each other, the niggling details that reside under that arched sentiment cry out for a check on reality. I don’t know Mr. Fraser, and I have absolutely no knowledge of his private life, but I must add, his words have every appearance as the utterances of someone who doesn’t yet know. In other words, he has yet to experience just how that “burden” might manifest itself.
He refers to the condition of, “Lying in a bed full of our own faeces, unable to do anything about it . . . “, with such casual disregard, I am forced to believe the author has never had to personally endure something like that, nor has he provided care for someone in the throes of dementia who mindlessly filled adult diapers with crap and urine a few times a day, or who actually permeated the entire house with constant, piercing screams and howls born from God-only-knows-where inside a loved one’s slowly collapsing mind, all the while the loving family is filled with profound anguish, wondering if grandfather is experiencing fear or pain, or if grandmother is sensing the walls of her own brain tumbling over, but they’re trapped with no way to communicate except to shriek in horror-drenched panic.
If that is actually happening, (and how can we possibly know for certain until it happens to us?), what thinking, compassionate person would force such an experience upon another?
I witnessed my father’s final hours, and I was with my mother just hours before she passed. My father’s death, due to complications from emphysema, came on rapidly, (although his constantly out of breath suffering lasted over a decade.) My mother’s passing, by contrast, was for her, an arduous, many-years grind after suffering a stroke during a heart operation. Though she regained consciousness after the surgery, she was never again able to carry on a normal conversation; every sentence trailed off into unintelligible gibberish. Predictably, her dementia eventually worsened, and finally overwhelmed her. Every one of her loving children knew beyond a doubt, the one and only thing this incredible woman feared about death’s onset was the loss of her brilliant mind. She had assured us, many times, that her life had been abundant and filled with joy and love, and that she considered death something as natural as breathing; she was not terrified of its inevitability. But she feared above all things, dementia’s insidious mental suffocation; the taking of her self. She made it clear that she never, ever wanted that wicked fate to catch hold of her, but in the end we were all helpless to intervene, and having nowhere to turn, could only watch as our mother slowly sank into deep and very dark waters.
It is one thing for me to say I am a far better and clearly more reflective man for having experienced my mother’s protracted death. It is something quite different to say I intend to become a better man, thus I need one of my loved ones to experience terrible suffering. Or, I intend for you to become a better person, thus you need to experience my unquenchable suffering.
In this vein, I wonder at the number of soiled diapers or shrieks filling the house or sobs deep in the night hours Mr. Fraser will require his family to endure, before he relinquishes his grip. As a marriage hurtles over the abyss, is that the time to admit things have gone on far too long? And what if you, the patient — the burden — have waited too long? What if you’ve slipped beyond your ability to make rational decisions for yourself? How’s that for dumping a burden on a family?
The author states: “Having someone wipe our bums, clean up our mess, put up with our incoherent ramblings and mood swings is a threat to our cherished sense of personal autonomy.”
Let’s make something quite clear: If your speech is nothing but incoherent ramblings, you can no longer control your bowel and bladder and your mood bounces about like a barrel in a storm-tossed sea, there’s good reason to believe the threat to your cherished, personal autonomy has already disappeared, in the same way the threat from Hitler’s Germany to Poland’s autonomy disappeared the moment the Führer’s military ground everything in its path to bloody dust.
That which has been destroyed is no longer threatened with destruction.
All of this blathered thinking turns on the notion that our physical survival trumps all other considerations, even common sense. There’s a lot of fuzzy theology mixed up in all that, and I won’t attempt to suss out any of it, but the idea that the best outcome among a pile of lousy outcomes will always be THE outcome where my lungs are still scarfing air — no matter the number of orifice-affixed tubes or impossibility of recovery— seems far beyond unreasonable, and irrational at best.
Let me put it another way . . .
It’s never a good sign when Elvis leaves the building before the concert is finished.
Again, a point of clarity: Dementia, by its defining prognosis, will eventually turn your most beloved and cherished friend or relative into a mental and emotional stranger. It will do that, because that is what dementia does. The physical husk — that recognizable shell — will remain, but its attendant bodily functions will degenerate, and until the core processes fail completely, those functions will need constant and consistent care. If you have never personally provided that sort of care for someone you love, if you’ve never changed your mother’s soiled diaper, or cleansed your father’s catheter, all the while listening to them shriek ungodly things, (and that list goes on and on), then you have no idea the real burden that must potentially be endured. And for what it’s worth, when I refer to “providing care”, I don’t mean the hiring of a nurse to provide in-home care, or having one partner provide the bulk of succor and assistance while the other attends to the responsibilities of an 8 to 5 job located someplace else. Those are different things altogether, and if you write about such things, you owe it to your readers to provide your bona fides in this regard. Otherwise, you risk sounding like you know not much of anything.
When I contemplate the possibility of my mind slipping slowly over the cusp and spiraling down into a dark, frothy maelstrom, where thought is no longer anchored nor hope deliverable, I realize it is the thing I fear most. The inability to convey — in any manner — those things that matter most to me, to those who matter most to me, that is the very definition of hell. And if you suggest that outcome is the best remaining outcome because air continues to flow in and out of my lungs, I say you’re an idiot who doesn’t comprehend the words coming out of your mouth.
I’m reminded of the poignant story of Sir Edward and Lady Joan Downes, and how they decided to end their long and loving days on this planet. Joan, 74, was in the final stages of terminal cancer, and Edward, 85, described in a statement as “almost blind and increasingly deaf”, flew to Switzerland, and in the presence of their children, drank “a small quantity of clear liquid”, soon fell asleep and passed away.
I knew what my parents wanted, and after all these ruminating years, I wish that option had been available to them.
As regards Edward and Joan Downes, some will no doubt say, “They committed suicide! You’re not allowed to do that!”
I say, fie on you and the horse you rode in on.
Hand me that glass, Elvis.
