A Tender Hand in the Presence of Death | Hacker News Reader

A Tender Hand in the Presence of Death

newyorker.com

33 pointswallflower9 comments

The rotation I did through a hospice service when I was a fourth year medical student was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life.

Hospice staff are experts at effective pain-wrangling (pain in all its many manifestations), and, as they say, in helping people live until they die.

I'm grateful for the teaching - from both clinicians and patients.

I do wonder sometimes if it's a gift or a curse to know that your eventual death is coming soon. Death is such a weird concept that at least I personally feel I lack the hardware to fully comprehend or be at peace with (as of right now anyway).

I try to think of it as something that will feel like falling asleep. I don't dread sleeping, so I shouldn't dread dying either.

Thats a great way to look at it! Though lets be honest you wont be waking up from this sleep.

I'm not afraid of death, although I hope mine is delayed a long time for the sake of my family. I am, however, afraid of dying, which is often a long and painful process.

Fair point. Everybody hopes they can go swiftly into the good night.

Isn't the fearsome part of dying just the pain and sickness though? Those things can exist as a chronic state that doesn't lead to death, so I'm not sure it's dying that one should be afraid of...

In some countries like Belgium, unbearable pain that doesn't lead to death is sufficient cause for an individual to be granted assisted suicide performed by medical professionals.

That's a good point, the two don't have to be linked. I always think of them together, I imagine because so I've seen so many people die slowly, and relatively few end up with horrible chronic afflictions that still let them survive for a long time.

Every morning you wake up a different person, and yesterday's person is gone. The you of tomorrow is like the babies born tomorrow, and if you are not here tomorrow, it is like the absence of a baby birth.

In a world filled with fast money, quick soundbites, greedy startups and selfish individualism, it's heartening to read that people like Heather exist - quietly and patiently showing us what really matters.

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