In the Midst of Life

when they pulled me out.
    Apparently, I had been spotted lying at the bottom of the pool, not moving, and two men had dived in and got me out. They held me upside down by the legs, and shook me vigorously to get the water out of my lungs. Someone rushed into the massage room to alert the therapist, who came immediately. Whilst I was upside down, she thumped my back hard repeatedly. Then they laid me down, and the therapist started manual compression of the rib cage, forcing the heart to beat again. At the same time, someone else started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, forcing the lungs to function. They continued in this way until a weak pulse could be felt.
    Half the residents and staff of the hotel were now crowded round. I was breathing and coughing, but still unconscious, so someone suggested carrying me into the hot sauna, to raise my blood temperature. This was no doubt a good idea, because the evening air was chilly, and I was wearing only a swimsuit. It was in the sauna that I came to. I remember finding myself lying on a wooden bench, surrounded by steam, and the hazy faces of people around me. A doctor was leaning over me, listening to my chest with a stethoscope.
    ‘Where am I? What happened?’ I enquired.
    ‘You had a lucky escape,’ the doctor said.
    *
    Iwas indeed lucky, and millions of people can say the same – their lives have been saved by modern medicine, for which we can be deeply grateful.
    Yet life remains finite, and we go through agonies of indecision about whether or not to prolong it. Should drugs and treatments be continued or withheld? Is it futile? To resuscitate, or not? Finally, should euthanasia be legalised? These matters are so complex and so dreadful that they blow the mind. It is like being out at sea in a thick fog, and the compass fails. We don’t know in which direction to steer the boat.
    The great and good of the professions debate these issues endlessly. But that is not enough.
Everyone
must enter the debate, because we are all involved; and this is where most people fall lamentably short. It is well nigh impossible to talk to anyone about death, I find. Most people seem deeply embarrassed. It is like when I was a girl and nobody could talk about sex. We all did it, but nobody talked about it! We have now grown out of
that
silly taboo, and we must grow out of our inhibitions surrounding death. They have arisen largely because so few people see death any more, even though it is quite obviously in our midst. A cultural change must come, a new atmosphere of freedom, which will only happen if we open our closed minds.
    I have the impression that things are already changing. Around 1975 I spoke at a sixth form college. The subject was, ‘Should drugs and advanced medical treatment be given to an old person who is dying?’ When it came to questions and debate, there was an ominous silence. Twenty boys and girls gave me some very suspicious looks, making me feel uncomfortable. When it came to a response, every one of those young people said that, of course, all available treatment should be given, no question about it, there was nothing to debate. I remembered my matron’s words: ‘This is a dangerous subject,’ and her caution not to be too free in what I said and to whom, because I would be misunderstood.
    Last year, 2009, my granddaughter, who is doing A-level philosophy, religion and ethics at school, asked her course teacher ifI could address the class on the same subject. Afterwards, about twenty-five young people couldn’t stop talking. Debate, opinions, examples were thrown back and forth. The bell went, it was the last lesson on Friday, and still they couldn’t stop. I seem to remember we overran by about twenty minutes, until the caretaker came in to say he was locking up. This is the healthy attitude, and our hope is in the young. My thanks to staff and pupils of Townsend C of E School, St Albans.
    However, the dilemma remains. Life used to be so much simpler, as it still is in many parts of the world. Birth, life and death were seen as part of a great whole, ordained by God. This has largely been eroded by the steady decline in faith. But it seems that Man is a believing animal; we absolutely must believe in something outside ourselves, and preferably something beyond our understanding. Having lost faith in God, we place it uncritically elsewhere. Huge numbers of people now cling to faith in science, which, it is thought, can be controlled.
    This is the root