| | Since the name-calling has ended, and since the thread on the Forum seems to have shifted here, I -- like McArthur -- have returned.
Joe, I feel tremendous sympathy for the plight of you and your mother. And I feel sympathy for Terri's parents, although their concern does seem to have turned into an obsession. I was in a not-dissimilar situation, and I know how it feels.
My mother, whom I dearly loved, fell desperately ill of kidney failure. Somewhat against her wishes, I insisted on taking her to the Cincinatti Hospital, which had pioneered the new treatment of kidney failure with dialysis. Dialysis was then in a very primitive state, but it did save her life. When we returned to Winnipeg, my mother purchased a dialysis machine and gave it to the hospital there, with the proviso that she could use it when necessary. For a year, she was on dialysis for eight hours once a week. Then, it became twice a week. Finally, the doctors told her that her condition had further deteriorated and that she now needed it three times weekly, and would have to accept the nausea and vomiting and miserable sickness that followed, for more than twenty-four hours, after each treatment.
It was then that she told my brother Sidney and me -- I returned to Winnipeg very often to spend as much time as possible with her -- that she was unwilling to continue living like this, and that she wanted to end the dialysis. She was completely aware that this was a death sentence, and that the prognosis was that she probably would not live longer than two weeks. She was calm, and rational, and understanding of the pain my brother and I, listening to her, were feeling. But she was determined.
Sidney and I consulted her doctor. He told us that the decision was ours to make: if we accepted our mother's decision, he would not require that she continue with dialysis; if we could not accept it, he would insist that she must continue. At one point I asked him: "If you had to be on dialysis three times a week, would you be willing to continue or would you prefer to die?" He was silent for a thoughtful moment, then answered that he would choose death.
My brother and I talked with each other about the decision for a long time. We concluded that her life belonged to her, not to us, and that she had the right to end it if she chose. She had the right to decide under what conditions her life was a value to her. We agreed, despite our own agony, to accept her decision.
She lived for a month. There was something she wanted to do before the end, and two weeks did not give her enough time. She called in, one by one, the members of her family, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, and the friends who meant the most to her. As I sat in her room listening, she told each of them, separately and specifically, what knowing them and being with them had given her and what joy she had derived from having them in her life. Each of them left her room weeping -- and exalted by the sight of her courage and love.
Of all the gifts she had given me, the greatest of all was this last terrible month when I sat at her bedside, listened as she talked with those she loved and watched her slowly fade from the exultant life that always had been hers. I had known she was a valiant and strong woman; I had known she was remarkable; I had not known the extent of it.
Now I want to tell all of you a story about Nathaniel Branden and Ayn Rand -- particularly since you are about to see Nathaniel vilified, with the publication of the book that is soon to be published and about which we have talked, more violently than he ever has been vilified.
During the period before her death, my mother, who was very fond of Nathaniel, spoke to me about him. He and I had been separated for more than a year at this time. She said, "Barbara, I would die in perfect peace except for one thing. Your separation from Nathaniel. I am so worried about you, and I so very much wish that you two were together."
Strange as this may seem, I did not know what I would say until I heard my own words. "I've been waiting for the right time to tell you. We are together again. We're convinced that we can make it. We've been talking about it for several months, and I recently moved back with him."
I could see in her face that she wasn't certain whether or not to believe me, although I had struggled to lie to her as convincingly as I could. When I left her room, I telephoned Nathaniel in New York and told him what I had said. "Would you telephone her," I asked, "and confirm my story? Can you do that for her?" He answered, "Wouldn't it be better if I came to Winnipeg and told her in person?"
He arrived the next day. Between the two of us, we convinced my mother that we were happily back together and would stay together.
When my mother had died, and I returned to New York, I told Ayn Rand what I had done, rather expecting her disapproval, although I felt not the faintest shadow of guilt about my lie. She said, "You did the right thing, Barbara. In your place, I would have done it, too."
Please remember this story when you are told, as you will be told, that Nathaniel is an unfeeling and cruel wretch. Remember it when you are told that there was little more to Ayn Rand than an obsession with moral absolutism. Remember it, as I do.
Barbara
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