Hospice is where you go to die. I’ve heard that many times. I don’t believe it for several reasons, but it still is common to think that you are not going to live long once you are on hospice. The numbers often bear this out of course. Many people that come on hospice live for a week, two or three. I see that every week. But many live for months, some years, and some five years or more.
Now this brings up some questions for me. Who decides how long I will live? I don’t know anyone that can decide how long I will live, unless I committed a capital offense and my life is forfeited by the state and they put me to death.
But short of such criminality, who decides I have a certain amount of days left on this earth. Currently, no one does. We give certain people, most often doctors, the power to suggest that we have a short time left to live. And most doctors don’t take that power lightly. And they all know that their predictions are not a sure thing. I’ve watched doctors and nurses make this prediction, and they are usually right, not to the day or even week, but often to the month and nearness of someones death.
Another question that comes to me as I observe people die is this, Now that someone has said that I am about to die, do I believe that or do I make up my own mind about how close I am to dying. Or do I flat out deny that I am dying?
It often seems that the dialysis patients that come onto hospice usually die within a few days of their last dialysis treatment. But even there, I’ve seen a small number of these patients live for months, even a year or more.
Who decides what day I will die? Or is it even a human decision at all?
A very important question in this line is once I believe the doctor, or the nurse or other health influencer in my life that I am very close to dying, what do I do with my remaining days? Do I pray to get it over with as quickly as I can, hoping to die tonight, or tomorrow? Or do I try to maximize whatever time I have left. I have seen both approaches.
I go back to a Native American saying, Today is a good day to die. There is a stoical sense in this saying, that I’m always at peace with my death. It will come when it comes and I am prepared.
I’m not saying that is easy, certainly not. I am saying, that the questions change once I think that way. I don’t need someone to tell me I’m dying. I already know that. I want to be around those that tell me I’m alive, right up to my last breath. And beyond.
I think about death every day, I’m trying to do better at thinking about life. You don’t half to think about death everyday, but I suggest you think more about your day to day life, while you still can.