Bearing Witness

by Jo McElroy Senecal is a moving essay that appeared in the NY Times "The End" series.  Ms. Senecal worked for the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Program.

It’s sacred business, watching on the periphery as someone is dying, knowing that person may soon find answers I can only dream about. Being in that room is about being inches away from someone’s intensely personal, unique, painful, awful, scary, gorgeous scenery. Just being there without judgment or agenda; just being there with a shocking amount of love and compassion...

Whether a newborn, a toddler or teenager, a middle-aged or thoroughly wrinkled soul, when they are too sick to get out of bed and their breath is ragged and their hands are starting to curl into their palms, they are the sacred vulnerable and it is up to the ones standing to take good care.

This is a touching piece, it comes from the heart.  Read "Bearing Witness."

Bride at father's death bed

The End

“The End [is a series of occasional articles in the NY Times that] features essays by people who work in fields dealing with death and dying, like medicine, ethics and religion, as well as personal essays by those who have experienced the death of a loved one.”  Many of these pieces are moving and important.

A Pioneer for Death With Dignity

Barbara Coombs Lee is the president of Compassion and Choices, the leading nonprofit organization committed to helping everyone have the best death possible.  In a March 18^th, NT Times 2015 essay, she writes about Frank Roberts, “A Pioneer for Death With Dignity:”

More than two decades before Brittany Maynard’s public advocacy for death with dignity inspired lawmakers in Washington, D.C., and at least 16 states to introduce legislation authorizing the medical practice of aid in dying for the terminally ill, Senator Frank Roberts of Oregon sponsored one of the nation’s first death-with-dignity bills.

Had he lived longer, Frank might have been able to benefit from Oregon’s becoming a state that allowed death with dignity. But he died too soon.

 

photo from the Times article