Names of the Dead

My mother died of colon cancer when she was 42 years old. She had 5 children, ages 6 to 17. I was 9 years old when she died. She suffered for 3 years. The night she died, my little brother and I lay in bed crying. We could hear her screaming in pain. The echoes of those screams have never left us. We as a family were very poor. My father was a self employed carpenter. It took him and my two older brothers five years to pay off the doctor and hospital bills, and that was in 1963. Of course, we did not have health insurance then, but that horrific experience taught me a lifelong lesson of empathy and compassion toward others who have suffered the loss of a loved one from illness and disease. I share this very personal and private story with all of you so that we as a nation can finally recognize and acknowledge the needless pain of our broken health care system. All of us will die. Some of us will die peacefully with all the comforts of modern technology at our disposal. Others of us will be cast aside, marginalized, ostracized, abandoned, and discarded by cold blooded corporate selfishness and greed. What we do now as a nation will determine the extent and scope of perpetuating needless suffering not only for the injured, but for the survivors. We, the walking wounded must do more than pick up the shattered pieces of our lives and struggle to carry on. The time has finally come. Now, it is up to us to do the right thing. Let us work together to create a more compassionate nation. We must become a civilization where families can live (and die) in the warm and comforting embrace of a caring society. I ask you to do this in honor and memory of my mother.