Alexandra Drane started a wonderful movement called Engage with Grace over a year ago and she asked me to join a Thanksgiving rally supporting this movement. I’m happy and proud to do so. As I wrote in one of my most contentious posts, once my mother was diagnosed as being terminal after a valiant 4 year battle with Ovarian cancer, the system totally failed us. Support turned to indifference. Every attempt was made to have my mother end her days in the hospital rather than spending her last 2 months at home. It was only because of my connections and resources that she was even able to end her days with dignity surrounded by those who loved her. Indeed just days before the end, she was able to be taken in a wheelchair to the library she had presided over for over 40 years at Saint Ann’s School and see it officially renamed to the Anne Bosworth library and hear the tributes of all who have known her and learned from her. All this would have been denied if the current “health system” had had its way. It is this indifference to the needs of those at this stage of life that the movement is dedicated to combating and I enthusiastically endorse it. Engage with Grace has 5 basic questions everyone should know.
We are supposed to ask more lighthearted questions on this Thanksgiving weekend, but I’ve been unable to get WordPress to accept this questionnaire and I think it is a sign. We need to change the system profoundly to take human needs into account first. We need a system that works to meet these needs, not to try every possible futile procedure leaving those poor souls to suffer their last weeks or days in pain and indignity against their will. This is a serious business for those of us who have lived through this, seen the suffering first hand. We give thanks for many things this weekend but we look forward to the day when we can give thanks for a caring health care system.
To learn more please go to http://www.engagewithgrace.org.
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