The Will to Live

Do not underestimate the power of the will to live. I have seen people at death’s door turn back to their life, through their intense desire to live.

I remember Alice, who was near death at Mercy Hospital in Iowa City, Iowa. 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, Alice seemed to be in a coma. Then she suddenly rolled over towards us, opened her eyes, sat up, and looking intently at us, she said, “I like life; I’m not ready to die; there are some things I still want to do.”

Her daughter and I supported her unexpected wishes. Sure enough, Alice left the hospital within a few days, and for the next two years, she lived adjacent to her daughter’s farm in a cozy trailer. I enjoyed visiting her those two years. Finally, Alice said she was ready to go home; and shortly thereafter, at eighty-five, she got her wish.

I also remember Judy, who was at the University Of Iowa Hospitals, dying of cancer. She was a friend of some of my church members, and they asked me to go and visit her, as she had no pastor and was at the end. I will never forget our first visit, where Judy, though near death and not expected to leave the hospital alive, told me that she wanted to live long enough to see her son graduate from high school, a whole 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 total remission of symptoms.

She returned home, where she lived for about two weeks past her son’s graduation. During that year there was considerable healing in family relationships.

The poet Dylan Thomas wrote a poem to his father was 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. Thomas’ poem has inspired me over the years, and 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.”