The Problem with Dying

This week another patient died. I am a chaplain intern at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Patients are going to die. That is, for many, what they go there to do. And yet, I am startled. A man, an old man (93, I believe). Died. He did not suffer, he was healthy and more active than I am until two weeks ago. Then a stroke, I think, and this week, we terminally extubated him. I watched as the doctors did what they do. And then we ushered in the family so they could be with him while waiting for him to die.

I can't imagine sitting in a room with someone I love and waiting for them to die.

And I went home that night, just completely thrown. And, to make matters worse, I was thrown by the fact that this man's death threw me! I wrote my sermon on death and dying. I have now delivered it twice. I know we all die, I know it is normal and natural. I know it happens whenever it happens. And I know I have no control over that. I have made my mental peace with Death.

But my heart refuses the whole endeavor.

Somewhere in me, I cannot seem to defeat the inner five year old who folds her arms over her chest, stamps a black-pattened-leather, mary-jane clad foot on the floor and cries, "this is not fair! I do not deserve this."

And I know neither how to explain to her that yes, it is unfair and that she might as well just learn to live with it not do I know how to best Death and make it succumb to MY rules of life and living.

And I am angry because Death is a problem which cannot be solved, nor can I, at this point in my life, reframe it so that it is not a problem, but more of a challenge to navigate or-quite simply-just one of life's many truths.

Recently, in a my class Visions of Reform Judaism, I read an article by Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman (my hero). In it, he pointed out that one underlying metaphor within Judaism is "the journey." If life is a journey, then, like corss-country road trips, there are requisite stops along the way. When you drive America, you have to go to the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore, The White House, Lincoln Memorial etc. On our life road trip, we must stop by at "sickness" "health" "joy" "sadness" and so on. We must also stop by at "death."

And I both long for and dread the day when not only do I know this in my head, but I also know this in my heart. When the death of another does not so startle me. When I can get through a day at Mount Sinai and not consider the day which will one day come when I am in a hospital somewhere wrestling with the life and death, sickness and health of my self, my parents, my brother and his family, my friends, my neighbors, my congregants...the list goes on.

But when the day comes that I am inured to death and no longer traumatized by its surprise, I will sleep through the night, I will walk out and just go on with my day, I will not think about the loss to the world and to those who loved the person, and I...I will be just a little less human, a little less soft, a little less warm.