At the ends of their lives, my parents, through example, taught me about human dignity.
My father died first, from lung cancer. In the final weeks of his life, he laid in bed in our den. He was a large man, and he gradually became less able to move, or even roll over. His pain medication dazed and weakened him.
One day, my older brother came home to find that Dad had soiled himself in the bed. Neither my mother nor my brother knew what to do, and the hospice nurse would not come until the next day. They felt helpless.
Then Jim, one of my brother’s friends, came to the house to visit. As a teenager, Jim had a difficult relationship with his own parents, and my father was always available and accepting of him. Jim learned how to care for the bedridden during his own father’s final illness. He showed my brother how to turn Dad, cleaning him and changing the sheets.
Several years later, Mom was dying of congestive heart failure. She’d stopped eating and drinking, and we expected her to pass away within a few days. She needed more intensive care, so my brother found a hospice center where she could stay. She agreed to the move.
When she arrived, the hospice staff told her that she could order anything from the kitchen that she wanted, any time. She brightened, and said, “Well then, I’d like scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. Crispy, with butter. And black coffee.” She lived another 15 months in hospice. Whenever I visited her, the staff told me how upbeat she was. She always smiled, asked people how they felt, and complemented the food, the care, even the way they dressed.
When she died, many of the staff members told me about their great affection for Mom, and the hospice director told me that Mom had shown them that they could enrich their patients’ lives by more often asking them what they wanted. As a result, the hospice improved its procedures to maximize the residents’ choices and autonomy.
At the end of life, Mom and Dad were cared for like babies. Other people – often strangers – took them to the bathroom, bathed them, even turned them over in bed because they couldn’t do it themselves. Eventually, they became completely helpless. We make ourselves dignified by the way we act, and they were not dignified.
But they had dignity.
Dignity is a gift we give each other. We give people dignity when we really see each other as human beings, and respect what is human in each other.
And my parents received respect and were treated with dignity because of the love and respect – and dignity – they offered other people. This is their lesson for me.
