For a few days now, this writing, The Value of Time, has been on my mind. Everyone has probably received it in countless chain e-mails or seen it on innumerable posters and flyers. A quick google search located it for me, tagged as having an “unknown author.” It goes like this:
To realize the value of one year: Ask a student who has failed a final exam.
To realize the value of one month: Ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.
To realize the value of one week: Ask an editor of a weekly newspaper.
To realize the value of one hour: Ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
To realize the value of one minute: Ask the person who has missed the train, bus or plane.
To realize the value of one second: Ask a person who has survived an accident.
To realize the value of one millisecond: Ask the person who has won a silver medal in the Olympics.
This story which appeared yesterday on several blogs and in the Times Online had me remembering the lines that say “To realize the value of one minute: Ask the person who has missed the train, bus or plane” and “To realize the value of one second: Ask a person who has survived an accident.” The header of the Times story went: Woman who missed Flight 447 is killed in car crash. As stated in the Times:
An Italian woman who arrived late for the Air France plane flight that crashed in the Atlantic last week has been killed in a car accident, it has been reported.
All 228 people aboard lost their lives after the plane crashed into the Atlantic four hours into its flight to Paris.
The Times reports that the woman died when her “car veered across a road in Kufstein, Austria, and swerved into an oncoming truck.” Her husband, who had also missed the flight from their Brazil holiday, was seriously injured.
May her soul, and the soul of all the Air France crash victims, through the mercy of God, rest in peace, Amen. And may her husband, who must surely be wondering what is this spirit that seems determined to catch up with him, find consolation in God’s tender loving care.
As I mentioned at the start, I had been thinking about The Value of Time before coming across this tragic and incredulous story. I had been thinking that to know if a foetus is a human life, one should ask the mother who has miscarried a desperately wanted child. I was thinking, to know if every imperfect life is worthless, and therefore the raison d’etre why countries must legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide, we should ask the persons of the following two “stale news” stories.
When the news first broke in 2005 about the world’s first successful face transplant, many persons – in media, medicine, academia, and of no claim to fame like myself - felt a deep unease over what doctors in France had achieved. Minds were set racing about whether global identity theft would move to a more malevolent level; whether criminals would resort to face transplants to evade detection; and whether a wave of outright evil be unleashed, especially given the growing medical tourism industry. That later was fueled by a major ethical conundrum raised by face transplants: namely, the facial tissue had to come from a living, beating-heart donor. Would face transplant usher in a new wave of abductions or child murders to make up for the shortage of brain-dead donors versus disfigured people who had the money and the absence of conscience to go to medical centres operating in locales outside the constraints of rigorous legislation or human scruples?
These concerns have not gone away, but…not everything always comes in black and white, at least not instantly. Reading the stories of James Maki, and Connie Culp, and watching their before and after pictures have made me a very captivated listener when the more learned discourse about face transplant surgery. My discomfort remains. The plugs have to be pulled on someone, although one declared brain-dead, to give somebody else a shot at a better life.
As the more calloused would say, a “useless, bed-blocking” life is hastened to its demise, to help one deemed more deserving or more capable of independent survival. It all sounds somewhat like abortion justification arguments (one life has to be squashed so another can have a better life). Since this means some person has to be the arbiter of which life is more valuable, I am uneasy with the pseudo daity aspect. It makes me uneasy because all the arguments for abortion, euthanasia etc. start out sounding reasonable, especially to the undiscerning. Who will not want to save the life of a mother versus that of a child who will not make it in any case? Who does not get teary over a melodramatic, modern-media manipulated tale of a widowed or single mom of many with no means to care for those she already has or of a nine-year-old incest victim with underformed pelvis, etc. etc? But the cult of death is a bloodthirsty one, and those arguments, expereince and data have shown, soon become a free-for-all to the point of being involuntarily imposed. Or we soon see persons, like “poor black women” deemed to need [abortions galore] being bullied to go along.
Still, in a strange way, the face transplant stories highlighted here and here are making a poweful statement on the side of life. In time, the features of the individuals should settle down to something more comely, as their healings progress. But even with the results fairly soon after, they seemed so pleased. And despite all the pain and horrible moments they had to endure on account of their disfugurement, they did not comit suicide. Here is a bit from the story of Connie Culp:
Her psychiatrist Dr Kathy Coffman-said: ‘Once while shopping she heard a little kid say, “You said there were no real monsters, Mommy, and there’s one right there”.
‘Culp stopped and said, “I’m not a monster. I’m a person who was shot [by her husband],” and pulled out her driver’s licence to show the child what she used to look like.’
Such strength of character. Culp’s before and after photos follow. Click here to read a ’stale news’ story about her surgery .
Before and after
Before
After: and loving it
Before
After: and quite pleased with it!
The title of the May 22, 2009 story in England’s Daily Mail about this man, James Maki, was Face transplant man reveals joy of new look five years after falling on electrified rail line.
Don’t you just want to cry when you think of some of the reasons why babies are aborted pre-birth or why some people are turning themselves in for assisted suicide? Maybe one day doctors will be able to perform a “life transplant.” Swap the life of those who think their healthy life is useless with those who really want and appreciate life.
