The paper I presented in Oxford was called “Hospice Comics.” I’m in the process of editing it for publication now. One of the goals of my paper is to bring to light several graphic memoirs that do a wonderful job sharing, in image and text, the realities of family experiences with natural death. Not something you might expect to find in comic form, but that’s another important point: there are all manner of unexpected topics being successfully presented in graphic memoir today.
I started down the road of research about hospice comics because scenes like the one above showed up in my own work. I wondered if the medium I was using – comics – and my own particular style within that medium – colorful, childlike drawings – had precedent.
Yesterday on Fresh Air with Terri Gross, a show I usually turn to in feeding the creative side of my work, I listened to an interview with Judith Schwarz, a former ICU nurse who now is the Eastern region coordinator for Compassion & Choices, an organization that “helps support patients and their loved ones at the end of life and helps guide their search for a peaceful death.” Their conversation on Fresh Air was the most honest and detailed account I’ve heard of end of life choices, and I recommend it highly. At the link above you can listen or download a transcript.
Schwarz talked extensively about choices, and how they can be maintained, saying that in Oregon, one of only three states where physician assisted suicide is legal, only about a third of the prescriptions for life-ending medication are filled. Of those that are filled, less than half are actually used. What was essential at all points in the process was that the person suffering knew they had agency and choice. When Terri asked if many people changed their minds after filling the prescription for life-ending medication, Schwarz said,
“Life is pretty precious, and as you get close to the end it’s amazing how just seeing the sun come up can be pretty wonderful. And that little bit of chicken soup, even if it’s only a mouthful, it’s wonderful. I’ve had some wonderful patients when we’ve talked about stopping eating and drinking and they say but do I have to give up my Scotch?”
Her position, and the position of Compassion & Choices, is that when facing the last phase of a terminal illness your death,
“should be something that you get to decide about. Other people shouldn’t make that choice for you. If you want that choice, you should be the one that’s able to make a choice that reflects who you are, how you’ve lived, and how you want to be able to die.”