Getting through the unbearable days

About thirty years ago, I was a general practitioner, practicing the old-fashioned way, going to see patients if necessary. I knew them much more intimately than by just welcoming them into my office.

One day, I go to see a new patient. Luc, in his sixties, suffers from cancer that he knows is incurable. From our first meeting, he told me that he did not want to suffer: the day he could no longer take it, he would shoot himself.

Palliative care did not exist at the time. I try to make him understand that his idea is not the best solution: not only does medicine have the means to spare him the pain, but by thinking that this would solve his problem, Luc would make his death even more painful for his family! He listens to me without saying anything.

I am not a pillar of the church, but my Christian life is based on these words of Christ: “I was sick, and you visited me” (Mt 25:36). I would like to tell him about the sacrament of the sick, intended to give strength and support in times of trial: he could find comfort there. He doesn’t see the use of it.

I then suggest visiting him to share a moment of discussion and prayer. I rely on small booklets brought back from Lourdes where I go every year, in particular the one entitled “Prayers for untenable days”. We travel a little together in the following months, in two or three exchanges. I try to open doors.

One day he called me: “I parted with my rifle. » What joy is this turnaround! And then, on December 23 – I remember it well, it was two days before Christmas – his wife telephoned me at 10 p.m. to tell me that he felt his departure was approaching. He wants to see a priest.

My parish? Unreachable. The neighboring community of religious people, of which I am the doctor? This is not their sector! I heard about a fraternity of Canadian fathers that serves a village near Luc’s home. At midnight, I leave a message on their answering machine. The next day, Luc’s wife calls me to tell me that her husband died in the early morning, after a Canadian father passed by in the night.

The sick and the destitute have given me a lot. I find them today at the social grocery store, or in Africa, twice a year, for humanitarian missions.