When my friend was at Forbes Hospital two years ago, I paid her a visit weekly. She was being kept alive by all kinds of contraptions. I knew she could not recognize me or even hear me but I still visited her and every time I had some goodies with me like bars of chocolate that she loved when she could still eat and not fed via tubes through her veins. I leave them on her table hoping her grandchildren would eat them when they visited. At times I offered them to the nurses sort of sucking up to them so they would take extra care of my friend.
One time I even touched her with a piece of cloth taken from the clothes of Our Lady of Torumba, one of the Marian devotional destinations in the Philippines. This was given to me by a Filipina who told me how it had worked miracles on her sister who had suffered a major stroke. A nurse was there when I was doing this gesture which I was afraid he would think to be weird. I did not have to fear, as I turned to him to check his reaction, he encouraged me to just do it with a look of understanding in his eyes.
My friend was in a section of the hospital where most patients with terminal conditions stayed. After my visit, I used to walk through its corridor and I would confess it was not uplifting. One particular day the whole experience of being in a place where it seemed the hand of God was pretty heavy got to me. I was beginning to feel upset and thought He or She should be more merciful and generous and not make their sufferings linger. I decided to go inside the hospital gift shop for a breath of fresh air and beauty before I got to my car. I confessed to the sales lady that I had no intention of buying anything and was just there to surround myself with something else other than the depressing signs of death and dying.
I told her how frustrating and sad I was that my friend was suffering and totally in a hopeless condition to live any further and yet was kept alive. It was then, she, a stranger, shared with me her personal story. Several years ago she had a friend with terminal cancer and was going through a lot of pain. She, the sales lady, was mad with God for prolonging her friend's condition until an epiphany came to her. I am not sure now how this enlightening thought came to her but it consoled her. God put in her mind that the decision to die does not rest on God. The person has still free will and has to decide when to die when she feels she is ready. Her friend needed more time for some reason. The sales lady decided to join her friend in the final chapter in her journey in life in peace after this gift of clarity from God.
I never forgot this insight which had helped me understand why God was prolonging another friend's life who was in a helpless and painful condition these past few months. I somehow was able to get a handle on something that was incomprehensible and confusing. Perhaps indeed as somebody said, life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived even during its death and dying stages.
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