When the terminally ill speaks (the final days of Tammy Faye)

Philippine News ^ | Jul 25, 2007 | Augusto F. Mesia, M.D.

[Alex Murphy]

“Our lives are but a single breath,
We flower and we fade,
Yet all our days are in your hands,
So we return in love,
What love has made.”

-Eye Has Not Seen
Marty Haugen

Tammy Faye Messner, the former wife of evangelist Jim Bakker, is a brave woman. A Christian preacher who’s known for her singing and flashy lifestyle, Tammy has been a bone of controversy even before she was stricken ill of colon cancer. That’s why she’s the kind of woman we can admire and learn from, if only we take her seriously.

On July 19, 2007, I watched Tammy on CNN’s Larry King Live two days prior to her demise. I saw the grim score of her losing battle against intestinal cancer which had spread to her lungs and spine.

The disease had impaired her ability to eat and talk. She spoke of constant pain which etched wrinkles on her forehead, soured her smile, and grew beads of perspiration on her emaciated body even with doses of morphine.

Famous for her artsy eyelashes and gaudy make-up, Tammy, looked drab and skinny. Weighing a mere 65 lbs, she chased her breath as though she was in the Andes. Around her tired eyes, skin lines had deepened into furrows which made her older than 65. Her once bubbly laughter had been replaced by a feeble chuckle of the dying

But Tammy, professing trust and love for God and humanity, was optimistic. Pain and death didn’t blunt her unbridled joy which comes from her religious faith. Supported by her family, friends and countless admirers, she was sure she got the mysterious loving God on her side even if she revealed, “I’m afraid of death a little bit.”

Believing that she’ll go straight to heaven, Tammy said, “People need to know that there is great peace and joy in the end.” It must be very comforting for her to say so.

Tammy made me ponder on the suffering Jesus and the pain of those who go through life’s final days. I thought of the families, caregivers, and doctors. Tammy made me conscious that we’re stalked by death, ever close at our backs, waiting to strike, as we age and get sick.

I couldn’t forget the humbled faces of patients and the spate of emotions of the deathly ill. Some bargained for time as they worried about leaving their loved ones; others were ambivalent about eternity and denied that illness could kill. There were those who remained unsettled till the end: angry, fearful, and unforgiving.

Yet I met a few hardy souls like Tammy. They had the benevolent spirit, courage, and right outlook. They were calm, accepting, and hopeful, bringing along their sense of humor even in the face of unspeakable hardship.

When Larry King asked what Tammy wanted to be remembered for, she jokingly said, “My eyelashes.”

“There’s peace in knowing Jesus Christ is our savior,” Tammy said later.

Not discounting the efficacy of medical treatment, I think it’s because of faith and positive outlook that she lived longer, proving her doctors wrong on some of their early morbid prognoses. The doctors might have given up on her, but her current husband, Roe Messner, a church builder, and her son Jay Bakker, a pastor of a Protestant Christian group, saw her unfaltering inner strength and the amazing will to live.

I believe Tammy is an example of what many doctors quietly knew all along--- that prayers and belief in some deity are helpful in coping with stress brought by illness and death’s agonizing wait. She’s a metaphor of what illness can do to our frail bodies as we wrestle with mortality.

There is something to learn in Tammy’s courageous fight. In her terminal illness, she had shown her heart when she reached out for the last time, in a halting faint voice saying, “I genuinely love you. I genuinely want to see you in heaven someday. I want you to have peace and joy.”

[Augustinian monk]

“Jay Bakker, a pastor of a Protestant Christian group”- What is he protesting?

[Sir_Ed]

Catholicism...like Luther!

Ed

[ichabod1]

Luthifer

[Augustinian monk]

LOL- yeah right.