The Days of Our Lives

Many decades ago there was a soap opera in the United States and that was its name. I remember that my mother used to watch it, or at least she had it on for company in the afternoons. I remember thinking that the title was an important reminder that this is when we live. Not yesterday, not for sure tomorrow, but this day, these days, and as the deep, masculine voice used to say, “These are the days of our lives.”

I used to worry as a kid about getting polio and having to spend the rest of my life in an iron lung. I decided to fill my brain with all kinds of things I could learn or read or see and I called it furnishing my brain. It was my idea that if I were trapped forever I could remember these things, these images, these words, and not feel so desperate. Then Jonas Salk saved my cookies, but the habit was ingrained. My brain is cluttered with micro-facts and mini-images and philosophies that correct each other.

Italy is wrenching itself to pieces over the case of Eluana Englaro. Eluana was in a car accident in 1992, and medicine managed to keep her from dying, but she entered a persistent vegetative state and was unable to recover. For seventeen years she has lain in a bed unable to come or go. Her parents mourned her disappearance but still had the empty body to care for. I believe there is not a single parent who would not cut off a part of his own body to bring back his beloved child. I know I would. Most would die to bring back a child. I think I would. But what do you do when there is no one there anymore?

Eluana’s courageous father Beppino took up arms against a state who had never made a clear policy on the subject. He fought for Eluana’s right to die with dignity. He wrote letters to every politician with any power to help. He fought in the courts. He hired attorneys. Not many were interested in helping him. He fought on anyway.

Finally, this year a court said that Eluana had the right to die. She had expressed the feeling that she would never want to linger unconscious and hopeless. Which of us has not thought that or said that? How many of us were lucky enough to have people hear us say it when we were only twenty years old? People say it is unlikely that she ever said it, but I know that when I was seven I was already furnishing my mind against crushing boredom in case of polio, so I believe she said it.

Arrangements were made to move Eluana to a private nursing home where she could be cared for during the process of dying, which was assumed to require perhaps two weeks. Suddenly, at the last moment, President of the Council Berlusconi decided to make an executive order forbidding that she be allowed to die. The President of the Republic Napolitano refused to sign it because he said it was unconstitutional.

All hell broke out in the newspapers, on television, in the streets and kitchens of Italy. The country was split down the middle. Allowed to die supported by 47%, not allowed by 47% and the rest didn’t know. I was astonished that anyone didn’t know how they felt, because there was not a moment when Eluana wasn’t dragged out in public and used as political fodder.

Eluana was transported to the new residence and people tried to block the passage of the ambulance. Crowds holding up signs clogged the streets. Eluana’s father was accused of wanting to murder her. The Pope asked for pity and aid to all the hopelessly ill without calling anyone a murderer, but some nuns were more than glad to fill in the missing words. Italy is a country without a state religion, but historically the Catholic church has had a lot of sway here. It is not, therefore, surprising that many priests had their say in public.

Although they were slow to realize how useful this case could be in demonstrating their power, the politicians decided to amend the Constitution, something that to date had not been within any party’s power, to “save Eluana’s life.” Eluana’s father pleaded with both Berlusconi and Napolitano to visit Eluana in person so that they would really understand the torture to which they were potentially condemning her. The warring sides made it into Parliament yesterday, and the blustering began. I will not say what I thought some of those voices sounded like, because I am aware that what I heard and how I heard it might be prejudiced. I will say that the sight of these various public figures, and I include the journalists, raking over Eluana and her life over and over, all day and all night was truly sickening. News programs were so loaded with the party line that nothing helpful was ever going to come from them.

In the middle of the emergency attempt to wrest the right to refuse treatment from the unconscious and guiltless Eluana, Eluana died. It took less than four days. It took less than half an hour for some of the politicians to say someone must have killed her — not that they stopped her feeding tube but that they outright did something to kill her before the amendment had time to go through. We await the results of an autopsy to determine which of the many things wrong with Eluana finally let her go in peace.

Terry Schiavo came up frequently in the arguments, but never from any point of view but her father’s and we all know he has an axe to grind.

Eluana is at rest, but she may be the only one who is. Everybody else still wants a piece of everyone else.

One way or another, things published on the internet have a very long life. Let this be my testament: I do not want to live like a beet. Once beyond a meaningful life, I would consider it the height of cruelty to force me to linger on a shriveling and non-sentient hull.

I think everybody ought to make sure that what they want is expressed in some irrefutable way. If you want to spin out the last thread, say so. Don’t just tell your friend or your daughter and leave them to fight your battle for you. Most of all, don’t leave it for the politicians to fight out over your senseless body.

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