“A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” When it is YOUR life or the life of a loved one, what is the weakest link in the chain helping you hold life? All the links have a “crack” or “weak spot.” Whose hands are there to support and catch you if a link breaks or needs soldering back together, enabling the remaining “life” that you strive to live?
The questions and art came from a decision often second-guessed: do I send the relative in my care to the hospital or let nature take its course?
The Situation: After six years, a team of family, doctors, and professional caregivers know there is no cure and agree that medical interventions that result in pain or a life against the spirit of an Advanced Directive are no longer appropriate. Yet, here they were: go to the hospital or not? One doctor “implored” family and caregivers to take the loved one to the hospital immediately. That word, “implore,” was new.
LUCK is a link in the chain. It was chance that a routine checkup happened when it did, that regular bloodwork identified something, that the doctor chose that word, a single word. The relative seemed normal.
Going to the hospital, a week later, the relative came out mentally and emotionally better.
Is there still second-guessing? Yes. That second-guessing and constantly trying to do the right thing in moments you never anticipated makes caregiving, in its many forms, stressful, demanding, thankless, and gratifying; provoking art, questions, and analogies to understand the ecosystem of life and death.
What is the weak link in your Chain of Life and Death and for the ones you love? Whose hands are underneath? And, when the time comes, can you be the hands that solder weak links and/or carry others in their most vulnerable moments?
