A Reason to Die

These past two weeks, working for a hospice business has been like reading obituaries every morning. We've had somewhere between eight to ten patients die. And as I know them only by name and number, it isn't very personal. After all, hospice care is for the dying. You have to have a doctor's signature on a piece of paper that states you are terminally ill in order to receive our care. Of course, that could mean you will die in 24-hours or in another 4 or 5 years. That's not really up to the doctor. That's in the hands of your Creator.

Of course being around the topic of death leads you to think about dying a little bit more. Like anyone, I think going to bed one night and not waking again on earth is a glorious way to go. I don't care if getting shot is less painful that being knifed. (Which, by the way, I have always wondered at. Has someone come back from the dead who has been knifed, shot, blown to pieces or whatever so they can tell us what is painful and what is not? And does it really matter once you're dead?) And who wants to get sick for a long period of time? No - I'm all about the peacefully dying in your sleep thing.

Unfortunately, I found out a few weeks ago that that is no longer an option. As if death isn't already complicated enough. Gone are the days of dying, being put in a pine box, a few men digging a hole to put the box into, a few words said over the box, the hole refilled and an engraved rock posted to mark your position in the cemetery so your great-great grandkids can be dragged to look at it someday. I'm always reminded of the movie Pollyanna when that old woman is picking out her casket, trying to make sure the lining matches the handles. Heaven forbid we should be buried in pine when we can put our family in debt for mahogany. Let's be sure our stone is the largest and most intricately carved so it can be seen for miles. And someone has to pay the workman's comp if one of the diggers throws his back out. In the end, it costs more to die than to live.

And if you do die, you have to have a reason. A nurse at a doctor's office called me a few weeks ago about a death certificate the doctor needed to sign. She had to know the cause of death or the doctor would not sign it. I read her everything our nurse wrote up when she pronounced the death, but that wasn't enough. I had to call the nurses to find out the exact reasons. Even then the doctor's nurse was not satisfied. Although "failure to thrive" is a government approved diagnosis, this doctor wouldn't take it. The nurse informed me that next time one of our mutual patients died we had to have an exact cause of death.

So if you want to die these days, you better have a very good reason to do so. For otherwise, you may not receive a certificate of death. Which, as your marriage license legally binds you to your spouse or your driver's license allows you to legally operate a vehicle, certifies that you are legally dead.

I just wonder then: if you don't have a death certificate, are you not really dead?