Death Be Not Proud
Moss David Posner M.D.
January 03, 2006
As I sit by my sister’s bedside this New Year’s Eve, I look at her, life ebbing out of her once-athletic body, and the sadness is so overwhelming that I have no words. I think I am writing now because I know how wonderful you all are and how you would care; and that makes me feel better. She is sleeping now—that she has received a shot of dilaudid, and so for a while she is comfortable. My son is sitting on the other side of her bed, and he is just looking off into space.
I remember one New Years Eve, over forty years ago. I was on call at Children’s’ Hospital in Pittsburg Pennsylvania. It was shortly after midnight, and they brought in the first patient of the New Year. It was a newborn infant who was stricken with paralytic polio. He would never walk; he would never breath on his own. He would be in an Iron Lung for the rest of his life.
We are told that everything has a purpose, and that God’s ways are not ours. There is a great relief in this knowledge if one only chooses to believe. I have to believe this, for there is simply no way or reason to believe otherwise. The simple inanity of the conventional injustice of this all compels me to see the solace and arms of Him, who suffered worst of all.
Tomorrow is my birthday. I’ll be 35 for the second time. It’s less painful to think of it thus.
So I wish you all a very Happy New Year; and please for me, do be happy and love one another. At first, do it for me, and then, for yourselves.
God Bless you all.
I remember one New Years Eve, over forty years ago. I was on call at Children’s’ Hospital in Pittsburg Pennsylvania. It was shortly after midnight, and they brought in the first patient of the New Year. It was a newborn infant who was stricken with paralytic polio. He would never walk; he would never breath on his own. He would be in an Iron Lung for the rest of his life.
We are told that everything has a purpose, and that God’s ways are not ours. There is a great relief in this knowledge if one only chooses to believe. I have to believe this, for there is simply no way or reason to believe otherwise. The simple inanity of the conventional injustice of this all compels me to see the solace and arms of Him, who suffered worst of all.
Tomorrow is my birthday. I’ll be 35 for the second time. It’s less painful to think of it thus.
So I wish you all a very Happy New Year; and please for me, do be happy and love one another. At first, do it for me, and then, for yourselves.
God Bless you all.
Print
Email
