Hindsight, Still 20/20

This past weekend, two of my friends were buried. One, from my youth, a wonderful memory, a Sunday School teacher. Another, wife of a friend, a pastor's wife. The mortality rate is still 100%. Ride down any highway and look at the cemeteries with the grave markers, every hospital, every funeral home, all are a reminder that we all will die. For many years, I owned a co-op apartment in Manhattan (a co-op apt is a large building where the owners own their own apartment and pay a fee each month for common maintenance, door men, etc.). Mine was on trendy Beekman Place, on the East Side river. Executives from two of the largest television corporations lived there.

Walking out the front door one morning a lady, who lived in the apartment across from me, was leaving at the same time. Her husband, one of New York's best known actors, had invited me to a reception in their apartment some time ago...mostly United Nations people...when he was already in a wheelchair. I said to her, “How is Will doing?” She said, “He died one year ago.” We stood on the front walk and talked for awhile. She told me he died two days after he was taken to a nursing home (the usual stay in a nursing home is just a few months). She said, “Before I could even go out and visit him, they called me and told me he was dead. I called a local cremation society and they did the rest...I never saw him again. I wrote notes to his family and friends and told them he had left the theater, final curtain.”

At Seven Springs, NC, the wife of a local landowner died. The neighbors began to take in the fried chicken and potato salad but could not find out anything about when her very peculiar husband was having the funeral. The third day, as they were taking in the cakes, pies, chicken, he said, “The boys and I took her up to the Methodist church cemetery this morning and buried her.”

In the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, when there is a death, white flags fly on poles high above the house. In India, those close enough to the Ganges, cremate the body on the banks of the holy Ganges River.

I am convinced that eventually, with the sanitizing of death (death is almost an embarrassment to most families), little attention at all will be paid by a family when someone dies. The 52 million innocent babies killed since 1973, 37 years ago, is a testimony to the fact that, in the new health care reforms, the expense of old age, the most rapid growing segment of the population...those over 85...our families and neighbors will be anxious to dispose of us early and quickly. If these 52 million babies had been permitted to live, they would be paying taxes, they would be the doctors and nurses caring for elderly. One of my secretaries was spending some time sitting with a disabled lady here in town. She died unexpectedly and Marie called the lady's daughter and told her that her mother had just died. The daughter said, “I don't have time to go now, see if you can get in touch with my brother.”

Old Testament, Abraham (name means father of a great multitude) was fortunate enough to have Eliezer, his full-time devoted servant. Abraham valued him enough to send him to find a wife for his son, Isaac (the son of Abraham and Sarah). I visited the tombs of Abraham and Sarah in Hebron. I cannot help but feel that Eliezer was probably responsible for their burial. Fortunate, any more, is the man who has someone interested enough in him to take care of his burial, his estate, his final days. I have said all this in order to make it clear that life is short and you had better live everyday as fully as possible. Old age is not for sissies.

You have only one body, one soul, one life. The body does not function the way it is written in books. Learn to care for your health as I am convinced that just as many people die from overeating as from starvation. Previously, I have written about old doctors I have known who use food as medicine. If one eats correctly, exercises, has a rich spiritual life, there is no reason for illness. The very worse thing you can do is put these toxic, exotic chemicals in your gullet as medication.

I learned early with patients that they do not think they have been treated, helped, unless you charge them a large amount of money for their visit and unless they can spend much more money for medicine...or any type care. My first experience with this, even though some old doctors had warned me, was my cousin Louise Edgerton. Forty years a public school teacher, on board of trustees of a Christian college, musician, business woman, a marvelous person in every respect, brought her mother to me as a patient. I told her that her glasses did not need changing...that she would just be spending money for little or no help...that she should be careful about her diet which was affecting her vision more than anything else. Of course, as happened many times after that with other people, instead of thanking me for them not spending much money, and me not charging them for valuable advice, they went directly to another doctor who “massaged” their pocketbook well, and made them feel much better even though they got no help whatsoever.

In the past 50 years, as a totally blind citizen, every time I go to a practitioner's office, I asked my driver the same question, “How many are here, how old are they?” Always the same answer. Most small offices have now been enlarged to auditoriums to take care of the crowd...of old people...there because they have nothing else to do and because insurance and Medicare is paying the bill. If you think it is bad in most offices now, just wait until EVERYONE can go at government expense. It is so obvious on radio and television talk shows when a specialist is being interviewed, every call, “Will my insurance pay for it?” People do not want to get well enough to pay for it themselves, they want the government, their insurance, to pay for their needs so they can spend their own funds to pay for their greed and, with all the intelligence at universities, medical and nursing schools, public health investigations, evidently I am the only one who sees the problem (a totally blind doctor). “Where [there is] no vision, the people perish:” (Proverbs 29:18).

Each of us, each individual, special, your own DNA, your own fingerprints, his workmanship (Ephesians 2:10). No one else in the world like you, God put you here for a purpose, your life is precious in His sight. You are only as effective as your health...you are what you eat...raw food, nutritious proteins, carbohydrates, limited fats and sweets. Learn to use common sense in your lifestyle, read and learn about your body, don't treat your children with adult medications and make sure some stupid doctor does not give you a full dosage if you are not heavy. Most are so busy in their “assembly line” care, just moving as rapidly as possible from one little room to another...you are lucky these days if a doctor or nurse even makes skin contact with you...remember they are only interested in laboratory findings. I had rather have an old doctor with a stethoscope examine me than all the laboratory and radiology results. Any doctor who is going to cut on me, I want him to be so old that he can barely hold the knife. You see, I remember how little I knew when I started out. The old practitioners have been there before, “done that”.

Every day of my life, I think, “If I had only had the foresight to buy such a security, buy such a piece of land, make such an investment.” Hindsight , Still 20/20. Believe me when I tell you, that the very One who designed you, who put you here for a purpose, will still advise you on everything you do, including your investments, your social contacts, your relationships, even your vote in the voting booth. No Christian, no person with morality would be guided by God to vote for such despicable people as those who promote a culture of death.