More on Life

The 2004 movie "Noel" included an interesting relationship of sorts (communion and communication) between two non-responsive, dying persons who were in the same hospital, their rooms directly across the hall from each other. When I saw the movie, I was intrigued by this, because in a way it was the producer's witness to the profound communion of all human life. Now I am remembering it in a different context: that of a single, apparently non-responsive patient in hospice care. Sunday's Chicago Tribune included a story about a woman who barely survived a car accident when she was 18. She suffered severe brain damage and has been as unresponsive and utterly dependent on others as Terri for 14 years. Then, out of the blue, she answered a question that her caregiver had murmured to her. And then another, and another. And then again silence. We have no idea of how the mind-brain connection works. I am praying for Terri, that if her spirit in some way perceives what is being done to her, she not despair. Today's Responsorial Psalm is very apt: "You will not abandon me to death" (Ps. 16).