Thoughts on the Suicide/Addiction Epidemic Among our Youth

"Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.

And in Your book they all were written,

The days fashioned for me,

When as yet there were none of them."

~ Psalm 139:16 ~

Forget the pandemic for a second (I know, I know). Let's focus on the epidemic of young people in the United States killing themselves with drugs and other forms of addiction, or just plain killing themselves, despite the "enlightened," postmodern, post-Christian, post-truth society we have created for them. 

In 1973, we legalized the killing of unborn children. In 1997, Oregon became the first state to legalize "death with dignity," AKA, physician assisted suicide. Eight states and the District of Columbia have since followed suit, disdaining Hippocrates' long revered prescript that doctors do no harm. Odd juxtaposition: abortion kills before birth; assisted suicide kills before death.

Oh, wait. That same oath declares that would-be physicians should refuse to end life in the womb. My bad.

A lot seems to ride on the definition of health care, which over the last two generations has expanded to include provision of death services. The National Institute of Health admits as much in its 2017 bioethics position paper, "Doctors Have no Right to Refuse Medical Assistance in Dying, Abortion or Contraception." Ponder its concluding statement, which concedes medical professionals' right to their own moral compass, while subsequently denying them the freedom to exercise that right in the most fundamental of their duties - the preservation of life:

"Reasons and values are essential to medicine. Doctors like others should have values that reasonably track what is right. Individual values ought not to govern delivery of health care at the bedside. Doctors can campaign for policy or legal reform. They can also provide advice with reasons, based on their values. But they have no claim to special moral status that would permit them to deny patients medical care that these patients are entitled to."

After that somewhat longwinded but necessary rabbit trail, let's return to the main point - why are young people today ending their lives in droves? It staggers the imagination, in an era where self-esteem is elevated to the point of self-worship, and self-identity is touted as the antidote to all manner of youthful confusion, that our youth are not seeing their intrinsic worth and acting accordingly.

Could it possibly be that we're sending mixed messages? On one hand, we proclaim the value of children to the extent that everyone wins a prize just for showing up (that's another article right there); on the other, we insist upon and legally sanction the right to murder the unborn and to commit suicide. While we're at it, we attempt to silence the consciences of medical professionals who opt not to participate in these death rituals.

I don't see how our kids can fail to form one of two troubling conclusions. One, they and only they matter; the unborn don't, and those who find their lives not worth living should be taken at their word and granted medical help to put an end to it all (as opposed to being offered hope and opportunities to serve in whatever capacity they can, which is the basis for self-respect). Two, the adults around them are simply blowing smoke when they proclaim the value of each and every individual, since laws and trends indicate otherwise. 

At the risk of self-promoting, I'm going to give my protagonist, Tanya, from my yet to be published novel, Belabored, the last word. The following excerpt describes a young girl's experience in caring for her dying grandparents, and how they still managed to give back, even from their death beds. The scene and storytelling are drawn from my family's own memory banks, and still bring a tear to my eye.

While it may be unrealistic to expect heroic exceptionalism of all who face pain and difficulty, is it so unreasonable to encourage sufferers not to hasten the end of their lives because things are tough? Wouldn't the truly heroic course of action be to persevere and seek ways to serve until one's life comes to its natural end?

I pray Tanya's anecdote will prompt thought and soul searching about what it really means to be alive, even when spirits sag and bodies betray us.

Chapter 18 Tanya

“Blessed is the servant who loves his brother as much when he is sick and useless as when he is well and can be of service to him.” – Francis of Assisi

            As if I’m not upset enough after my own debate debacle, I have a feeling this next one’s gonna give me nightmares. Carl Zeppo and Zara Patel are presenting on physician assisted suicide, and oh man, is it bringing stuff up for me. Literally.

            As Zara speaks, I find myself back with my grandparents in their room – the one at the top of the stairs that’s been mine ever since they died. When they were alive, I used to squeeze into their double bed between them, and Granddad would tell me bedtime stories. When I got too big for that, they invited me to set up my sleeping bag and camp out on their rug whenever I wanted. Mom was fine with it as long as I got to sleep on time, and Grandma and Granddad always turned off the TV the minute I crept into their room. I remember thinking that I wouldn’t want to turn off a show in the middle, but if it bothered them, they never showed it.

            While Zara’s making the case for physician assisted suicide, my mind switches gears and I can smell the disinfectant that permeated Grandma and Granddad’s room in their final years. I can hear the tiny “pppft” sounds coming from the oxygen machine, and see the long cord snaking across the bedroom floor, tethering their elderly, ailing bodies to what was left of their lives.

            They both got pretty sick, ending up on hospice with visiting nurses, that kind of thing. Both were unconscious at the end, which was really sad, except Mom said they could probably still hear us, so we whispered in their ears about seeing them in heaven, and prayed they had accepted Jesus into their hearts so that would actually be the case. At the time, I bought everything Mom said about such things, but now I’m not so sure.

            I guess Zara’s argument reminds me of all this because her main selling point hinges on physician assisted suicide being a “humane” alternative for the sick and elderly. “Death with dignity,” they call it, as opposed to the messiness and inconvenience (not to mention expense) of having to be taken care of. According to Zara, quite a few states have legalized patients’ rights to choose the time of their own death, and doctors are supposed to help by supplying some sort of lethal injection. So much for the Hippocratic Oath.

            The way Carl tells it, though, from the con side, sometimes there’s a big push from family members and society in general for such people to hurry up and die so everybody else can get on with their lives.

            When he says that, I feel the breakfast burrito I consumed two hours ago rise up in my throat. I will myself to keep it down by recalling the last time I saw Grandma alive.

            “Read to me, Tiny Tanya,” she urged. That was her affectionate name for me as long as I could remember, and she’d no doubt disregard my protruding gut and still call me that today. Her cancer-ridden body had made it impossible for her to get out of bed. Macular degeneration and cataracts had done their worst, and she could barely see.

            “OK, Grandma,” my younger self replied while settling into the chair by her bed. I opened my backpack and pulled out the novel my fourth grade class was reading. “This is great! I can get my homework done and still hang out with you!”     

            Looking back, I remember the plot bored even me and probably sent Grandma more quickly into her pre-death coma. But if the book made her yawn, she never let on.

            “Oh, Sweetheart, you are just what the doctor ordered!” she beamed, squeezing my hand. “How did you get to be such a good reader?”

            Evidently, she hadn’t picked up on the mispronunciations and skipped sentences my teacher was always calling me on. To her, I was Meryl Streep doing Shakespeare.

            I shift in my seat, trying to focus on the here and now. Zara and Carl have caught a break. Sickles the Interrogator is absent today. With any luck, he’s caught something non-contagious but terminal. I’ll be the first to send flowers to his funeral.

            Despite my best efforts, my mind wanders again. This time it’s two years after Grandma left us, and pretty much a bad rerun: Granddad in his final days, and Mom again muddling through with the help of hospice nurses and home health aides. But everyone on the medical team was home sleeping when Mom could’ve used help that November night at 2 AM.

            I woke to hear Granddad sounding agitated, insisting on going to the bathroom by himself. He wasn’t strong enough to get out of bed on his own, but what he lacked in physical strength he made up for in sheer will.

            “Shhh, Dad, you’ll wake Tanya,” I heard Mom saying as I made my way to the doorway of his room. By that point, she was fumbling to get his 200-pound frame onto the bedside commode. Even at age 12, I realized this wouldn’t end well. I instinctively stepped in to take some of the load. Mom flashed me a smile that warmed the dark room like sunshine, and said she’d never been prouder of me.

            After that, I kind of became her right arm. I mean, I still went to school and everything, but when I came home, I would ask Mom what I could do to help. She showed me how to change his adult diapers when he got too weak for the commode, and together we would roll him back and forth so we could fasten the strips of tape on the sides. I won’t say it was pleasant, and I know it made Granddad feel weird, but in a strange way, I think he felt good that we cared enough to do something like that for him.

            One day when I got home, Mom was in a state trying to get somebody to hang out with Granddad so she could do some errands. She looked older that day than I had ever seen her, and I could tell she’d been crying.

            “Don’t worry, Mom,” I reassured her. “I’ll stay with Granddad. Everything’ll be fine.”

            Two lines formed between her eyebrows while she considered this.

            “I don’t know, Tanya. It’s a huge responsibility.”

            I kind of pushed the issue, reminding her how much I had already done for Granddad, and that I’d been staying alone for short periods for quite a while. I could tell she was still undecided, so I rested my case with, “Besides, Granddad’s not going anywhere, is he?”

            That did it. She smiled indulgently, grabbed her purse, barked a few orders, and flew out the door.

            Granddad was still pretty alert at this point, unlike how he was at the end when the drugs controlled both his pain and his mind.

            “Hey, TT Pot,” he began, using his pet name for me. I didn’t like it, but never had the heart to tell him.

            “How’d you like to hear a story? Just like when you were a little girl. It’s been too long, don’t you think?”

            “Sure, why not?” I answered, not knowing that would be the last time he’d ever tell me one. I knew I couldn’t relax like I used to as a kid, when his bedtime stories would put both him and me to sleep. Still, I lowered the side bar of his hospital bed and cozied up to him as best I could without disturbing the cord from the oxygen tank, which wound their way across the floor and ended in two prongs that had an annoying habit of slipping out of his nose.

            “Oh, Tanya, don’t ever make the mistake Washer did!” he cautioned me, referring to the title character in the story, an overly curious raccoon who wandered out too far in the river near his home and ended up going over the falls. “Mother Raccoon couldn’t reach her little Washer because he went just a little too far.”

            A coughing spell interrupted him. I gave him a few sips of water and waited for him to continue.

            “Well, you know what happened next. Sneaky the Wolf captured him and took him by the scruff of the neck back to his den! He planned to serve little Washer to Mother Wolf and the cubs. But Mother Wolf ruled the roost,” he chuckled, “so you know that never happened.

            “In fact, she took a liking to little Washer, and so did the cubs. They became playmates, and Mother Wolf decided to adopt Washer and raise him with her other children.

            “There was just one problem, and you know what his name was!” Granddad laughed and waited for me to answer, as I had done every one of the thousand times he’d told me this story.

            “His name was Sneaky!” I cried with the gusto Granddad expected.

            “That’s right, TT, his name was Sneaky. Sneaky threatened to eat Washer one day, until Mother Wolf pounced on him and caught his flesh with her massive jaws.”

            Here, Granddad assumed an ominous, yet feminine, voice. His speech was weak and somewhat breathless, but he carried off the inflection the way he always had.

            “‘What are you doing with my cub, Sneaky?’ Mother Wolf growled through her sharp teeth.”

            Granddad then took on a sniveling tone for Sneaky. 

            “‘What do you mean, your cub?’ Sneaky replied. ‘That’s not one of our cubs! That’s going to be our dinner one of these nights!’

            “‘Oh, no, he’s not, Sneaky!’ said Mother Wolf. ‘I’ve decided to raise him and teach him

to hunt with the others. He can teach our little wolves things they could never learn otherwise.

It’s been decided!’

            “Well, you know what happened, TT Pot. They argued for a while, but Mother Wolf won

out, as usual.”

            Granddad was beginning to sound hoarse, so I gave him more water.

            “Thanks, T,” he said gratefully. “Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, Mother Wolf brought Washer to the big pack meeting to meet Black Wolf. He was the pack leader, and a fearsome sight to behold. Mother Wolf pleaded with him to let Washer into the pack, but, uh, but, lemme see –”

            “It’s OK, Granddad, you need to rest,” I said, seeing he was fading.

            “No, no, it’s OK, T,” he protested. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak, and he started rambling like he used to when he got too tired. I guess the dark room and warmth of the covers made him sleepy, and he always ended up nodding off and mixing bits of his dreams into the story.

            “Well, you see, Mother Wolf went to the White House and the Obamas were all there, too, of course –”

            I couldn’t help it, I started to laugh. It was just like old times, but with painkillers added in.

            I let him drift off, silently filling in the details he had left out. Sneaky’s visit to Black Wolf before the pack meeting, where he got the senior wolf to promise that Washer would be dead meat if he showed up. Black Wolf’s surprise defense of Mother Wolf when the rest of the pack descended on her, trying to get to Washer. And how Mother Wolf finally realized if she truly loved her adopted cub, she had to let him return to his own family of raccoons, where he would be safe.

           Granddad slept for about half an hour, but then I began to detect an odor I knew only too well. I considered my options. There was a good chance Mom would get home soon, so maybe it could wait. But then Granddad started squirming, trying to get comfortable, and I knew only one thing would accomplish that. I wrestled an adult diaper out of the full package and went to work. At first, he resisted, saying he could wait till Mom got home, but from the smell of things, I knew sooner would be better than later.

            I patted his arm and tried to sound confident.

            “It’s OK, Granddad. We’ll get this on in no time.”

            With a weak smile, he relented, and 20 messy minutes later, the deed was done. It wasn’t on straight, and shortly after I finished, a yellow trickle made its way down his left leg via the gap where his hip met his thigh. But my pride was unconquerable. When Mom walked in the door, she burst into tears, saying I was the best daughter anyone could ever have, and she wished she could do something to reward me.

            She didn’t realize she just had.

            So, listening to Zara’s case for assisted suicide, all I can think of is these are the moments I’d have missed out on if that had been law of the land when my grandparents were dying. Sure, my life might’ve been easier if I hadn’t gone through all that stuff, but no one can tell me those two old people didn’t have something rich to contribute even from their death beds. I count those last days with them among the sweetest in my life, and if I could have them back, I’d gladly tuck in next to them in those God-awful hospital beds and be just as content as I was camping out on their rug when I was a kid.

            Suddenly, my throat feels like it’s got a huge glob of peanut butter stuck in it, and I catch a tear escaping from my eye. I wipe the back of my hand across my cheek, and swallow hard. It’s no use. The lump is there to stay.

            I force myself to listen to the Q and A. Let me tell you, Dr. Chase doesn’t grill Carl and Zara the way he did Sophia and me. He just makes them clarify a couple of points, then everybody asks their stupid questions, and we move on to the next pair of debaters.

            I slam the door on other memories that threaten to unleash themselves at this inopportune time. There’s one thought I can’t chase away, though – I wish Dolly could’ve gotten to meet those two wonderful people before they died.

***

Author’s note: The story Tanya’s grandfather tells her is adapted with appreciation from: Walsh, George Ethelbert. Twilight Animal Series: Washer the Raccoon. Philadelphia: John C. Winston Co., 1922. Print.