My grandmother-in-law passed away from cancer in the wee hours of this past Friday morning. As her wishes were to die at home, Melinda and I were her primary caregivers, with assistance from our daughters.

Grammy lived a full life to 99 years, and was still working in her yard as recently as three weeks ago, so her passing wasn't a tragedy, and this post isn't to mourn. Rather this post is about something I learned about the end of life process in our society, something that I found disturbing.

When they sent Grammy home from the hospital a couple of weeks ago, she came home with a lot of drugs. Very powerful drugs.

The thing was, Grammy spent all of her 99 years avoiding drugs. She just didn't believe in them. Even when she broke her knee a few years back she refused any drugs stronger than aspirin.

Well, they didn't send her home with any wimpy aspirin, they sent her home with the good stuff. The stupendous morphine stuff. I remember getting a big shot of morphine around 20 years ago when I ended up in the emergency room. That's some amazing stuff.

Anyhow, enough drug idealization, the important thing to say is that they sent her home with these powerful drugs, but of course she refused to take them. She didn't end up taking any morphine until the last couple of days. We had encouraged her to take it from the moment she got home, but she didn't consent to it until the very end. It was, at that time, a godsend.

What concerned me, and the point of this post, isn't the morphine, it's some of the other drugs that they sent home with her, and which we were put under pressure to force on her.

To be clear, we didn't force any drugs on her. To be equally clear though, we were at times under fairly intense pressure to force her to take drugs that she didn't want to take.

For full understanding it is important for me to point out that Grammy's mind never slipped. She was just as sharp in her final weeks as she was in her prime. More than once at the end I was called in to her presence so that she could remind me of what days certain bills need to be paid, and other similar details of life that she wanted to make sure I would handle after she had passed.

With all of that background out of the way, it is time for me to say that they also sent her home with powerful psychoactive drugs. Drugs that doctors give to insane people.

As Freemasons we believe that we are put on this earth for a purpose. We believe that it is a duty for us to seek knowledge, that which we refer to as Light. We believe that we seek this Light by searching deeply within ourselves to discover that which is fundamentally true.

As individuals, we all have a different journey through life, we might discover that which is true for ourselves in much different ways. For some of us we might even find Light at the end of life.

Do I know what was going on in Grammy's mind during her final days? No, of course not. I do know though that she was completely competent to make her own health care decisions for herself.

But, we were given drugs. We were given one drug that would apparently remove any fear of death that she might have been experiencing.

It seems to me that a fear of approaching death is probably a perfectly natural human reaction. Yet apparently we have drugs that can take that fear away. I don't object to the fact that such drugs exist, but she didn't want that particular drug, and as long as she was competent, it was certainly her fundamental human right to refuse it. Others apparently see it differently.

Of course it is probably quite a lot easier to take care of someone who is hopped up on this particular drug. Hence its existence.

We were also given a drug that would apparently remove any anger that she might experience. Once again it seems to me that anger at approaching death is probably a perfectly natural thing. It was also, clearly, her fundamental right to refuse this drug while she remained competent. Yet, again, it is probably much easier to care for someone who has this particular drug running through their system.

My objection to these drugs isn't about our own Grammy. We didn't force anything on her, we didn't make life easier for ourselves by filling her body full of chemicals that she didn't want, and was competent to refuse.

My concern is for those in our society who are not taken care of by loved ones. For those who are taken care of in institutional or other commercial settings.

Bob's mad because the food sucks? No problem, fill him full of the anti-anger drugs and call it good.

Jim's worried because he knows that he's dying and wants to talk through his fears? No problem, fill him up on the anti-nervousness drugs and then no one has to talk too him.

Mentally competent people retain their human rights no matter how old or how sick they might be.

No one has any right to force unwanted psychoactive drugs on any mentally competent person who doesn't want them.

To believe, or advocate otherwise is the very height of arrogance.

It is also unbelievably immoral.

As Freemasons we are charged to seek Light. We can not tolerate a society that seeks to deny that quest to anyone simply because of their age or illness.

#Dying #Light #Morality

-Cameron

Cameron M. Bailey Past Grand Master The MW Grand Lodge F&AM of Washington

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