The Hidden Promise of Death

Earlier in the week I visited a small town about fifty miles away to look at a Geo Tracker for my daughter. The price was within the range I wanted to pay, and the Geo had the airbags and other safety equipment I feel she needs for her and her daughter to feel protected. The address turned out to be a small, post WWII shotgun bungalow with old aluminum siding—the kind of house I grew up in during the early 50s.

The sun had just set, and the only light came from the full moon and the outside porch light left on to help me identify the house. The neighborhood was so quiet that when I pulled up and left my truck the owner of the Geo and his wife were leaving their house to greet me. These look like the people who were my parent’s friends when I was a young child, I thought, blue collar workers with a minimum high school education.

We went through the formalities, and I took the Geo for a test drive. The car had some problems I was not willing to repair, and, as the husband and I stood in front of the SUV as his wife looked on, I asked, “Why are you selling?”

The man looked at the ground before answering and said, “We bought the thing from a woman in Indy a few weeks ago for my wife to get back and forth from the warehouse where she had just got a job. But, she was let go last week. I worked at the stint plant in Bloomington, but I was laid off a few days ago. I had a pancreas and kidney transplant a while back, and we need the money to pay for my monthly medicine.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, “but I’m not interested in the car.”

“I understand,” the man said. “If you know of anyone else looking I would appreciate you sending them this way. My medicine is $800 a month and that ain’t covered by unemployment. I need the medicine so my body won’t reject the transplants.”

“I’ll do my best,” I promised.

Our short conversation has troubled me from the moment it occurred to today. This man and his wife were convinced by the purveyors of modern science that his life would be saved by replacing the dying organs within his body with those from some unfortunate individual who would have no further need of them. I’m sure the surgeon and doctor who administered the procedure informed both the man and his wife of the absolute necessity of taking the antibody regulators regularly and the consequences of not doing so. I’m also equally sure they were not informed of the monthly cost beyond, “the medicine is expensive.”

From all that I could see these were good, if minimally educated, people who were living their version of the American Dream—a small house in a small town with a regular job that financed those very small “luxuries.” I say “luxuries” because in other parts of the world, and in this very spot a little over a century ago, an 800 square foot frame house with aging aluminum siding would have been the equivalent of a mansion on the hill. But, we have a belief in this society that a clean, healthful life is a basic human right, and that belief precludes living in a mud wattle hut or a tin can covered cardboard box. I am also aware that the man and his wife may well be degenerate meth amphetamine dealers corrupting other organ transplantees and giving the prospective Geo sucker/buyer a song and dance designed to pluck at the heartstrings and loosen the wallet. Maybe so, but I think not.

Given that the man was honest, and I believe he was, how can we, as fellow members of an enlightened society, condone giving this fellow human and his life partner the promise of extended life with one hand and then threaten to take it away with the other if he has been denied the means to earn the outrageous monthly cost of the medicine that the promised extension requires? Such an action is truly evil because a promise was made but with hidden clauses that if not met, regardless of circumstance, is tantamount to a death sentence. As a society, we treat serial killers more humanely.