Death

Modern medicine has turned most natural human processes into medical events. Mothers are discouraged from having home births and physicians jealous of their turf have put up obstacles to block the certification of midwifes.

All human beings are mortal but too few people today get to die in their own homes surrounded by loved ones. Instead all too many get shunted off to sterile hospital rooms and denied the opportunity to die with dignity. Indeed unless a no code, do not resuscitate order has been signed the dying will be shocked back to life in a painful undignified attempt to delay the inevitable and extreme measures taken to prolong life where no quality of life can exist. It is now possible to maintain some semblance of life even when the brain is dead and the bodily processes can be continued when the person involved has no awareness and will never regain consciousness. Death has become something to be fought at all costs and not a natural part of living. In a hospital environment a person's loved ones are put in the untenable position of making a decision to let a patient die, to pull the plug. And if the event occurs past visiting hours even wives and husbands may be denied access by inflexible staff.

Death has been so sanitized and made taboo in our modern society that most reach middle age without ever having seen a dead body. It is lost upon most that some animal died to make possible that steak or chicken breast on their plate. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the language used to describe the event. People do not die, they pass away and even individuals dead for centuries are described as having passed. (To hell?)




 

Monday Rant

Just fought off the protective plastic ring protecting a bottle of Bread and Butter Pickles. I'm nostalgic for the days when such falderal wasn't considered necessary. When I could go to the hardware store and buy the single screw or bolt I needed without having to buy a blister pack with 5 or 9 items I didn't need and will probably not remember stashing away should I ever need them again. A regular customer at Spencer-Fraser Ironmonger in Oakville I miss walking their uneven floors and being told all too often, just get out of here with that.

How often have you come close to damaging a delicate item attempting to break it out of its protective stiff plasic wrapping? That new container of vinegar, mustard, of ketchup will not squirt until you fight to remove the flavour/security seal. That tub of yogurt, sour cream, or cottage cheese has a seal glued to the container's top. There's a zip seal to remove from your block of butter or box of crackers. An easy zip to pull off before you get to your bacon bits--easy? How often have you fought your way into a plastic or foil container of chips or cereal after unzipping the box.

Remember when grandma's baked cookies or made candied apples for Hallowe'en secure in the knowledge that no nervous parent would automatically dispose of them when their child got home. Now there's the additional concern that candies come impregnated with THC--the active ingredient in Marijuana. When   you didn't have to be concerned about finding nails or stick pins in a bag of potatoes? When the green grocers wasn't a possible source of some viral infection? When processed meats weren't a source of listeria? When letters weren't a source of anthrax? Today E-mail from an unknown source has the potential of viral infection--electronic viruses, a whole new class mischief. When medications didn't come in childproof containers only a child can manage to open--I've asked my druggist for non-childproof containers!