A Problem for our Times

Last Thursday’s WSJ article tapped into an agonizing problem that, if we are lucky enough not to have faced (yet), we all know someone who has:

Cross-Country Vigil For a Dying Parent
As Doctors Prolong Life and Families Scatter,
Saying Farewell Is a Stressful Juggling Act

When a parent is dying, the rest of life waits. Now, it often waits longer. As medical science gets better at pulling terminally ill patients from the brink of death, a loved one's final weeks can stretch into months or years. With families often spread across the country or globe, far-flung relatives face heart-rending choices as they wait for the end.

Hospice workers say counseling out-of-town relatives when to rush home becomes an excruciating guessing game. There are certain clues -- mottled skin, a rattle in the chest -- that can send a child racing to the airport. But patients sometimes rally just as the family gathers to say goodbye.

"You think death is occurring, you come, and you make that last, completing visit. Then you go home and a month later, you find that they're still there. You have to go back," said Dave Leisure, a social worker with the Community Hospice of Texas in Fort Worth.

“The rest of life waits….” For those with limited financial resources, the choices are stark and not made easier by a dying parent who, thinking of her children’s problems, tells them to stay home. But we, the living, know that when our time comes and we sum the ledger of our lives, our strongest regrets will be saved for those occasions when we knew the right thing to do and failed to do it. © 2007 Stephen Yuen