The Will to Live

Never underestimate the will to live. I have seen people at death’s door turn back through their desire to live. Likewise, I have sadly seen what can happen when persons lose their desire and will to live, even to the point of wishing for their own death.

I remember Alice, who was near death at Mercy Hospital in Iowa City. At eighty-three, she had by her own accounting led a good life. One afternoon, as her daughter and I sat next to her bed, she rolled over towards us from a deep sleep, opened her eyes, sat up, looked at us and said with surprising intensity: “I like life; I’m not ready to die; there are some things I still want to do.”

Her daughter and I jointly exclaimed “great!” Sure enough, Alice left the hospital within a week, and for the next two years lived adjacent to her daughter in a cozy trailer. I enjoyed our visits; she was an inspiration to me. Then when she was ready, at eighty-five, she went home.

I also remember Judy, who was at the University of Iowa Hospitals, dying of cancer. She was a friend of some of my nurse church members, and they asked me to go and visit her, as she had no pastor and was at the end of her life.

I’ll never forget that first visit. Judy was on pain medication, and struggled to wake up enough to talk with me. Yet I could not turn away; I had promised her friends I would hang in with her. Though near death and not expected to leave the hospital alive, Judy told me that she wanted to live long enough to see her son graduate from high school, a school year away.

I told her we could pray for a miracle, for her to receive if not complete healing, healing sufficient for her to live long enough to see her son graduate. We did and sure enough, to the amazement of the oncology nurses, Judy had a rapid and miraculous remission of symptoms.

She returned home, where she would live for two weeks, following her son’s graduation. Many good things happened to their entire family during that year.

Dylan Thomas wrote a poem to his father as he lay dying in the next room. It was a poignant plea for his father to fight on, to continue to will life and living. His poem has been an inspiration to me; many times I have quoted it to those at death’s borders:

“Do not go gentle into that good night, / Old age should burn and rave at close of day;/ Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right, / Because their words had forked no lightning they/ Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright/ Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, / And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, / Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight/ Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height, / Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”