Palliative Care and Lenten Reflections

BY Angelin Mathew, yale ’25

Currently, I’m working on a project to support the existential and spiritual needs of children with cancer and their families in palliative care. When I explain to my friends what business I have taking philosophy classes or why I’m reading about the afterlife in my free time, I unironically find myself trying to formulate an answer to the question “Why does it matter what you believe happens after death?” (or even that something happens after death) in a manner that is approachable to college students and understandable with the variable, somewhat limited “real-life” experiences we have.

The consensus I’ve gathered is that most of us see our death as incredibly amorphous and abstract, with thinking that roughly approximates the following: Yeah, it’ll probably happen, but at that point, we’d have experienced various “stages of life” (love, cycling through jobs, owning homes, etc.). Our skin will be wrinkly, and our bodies will ache, so we probably won’t be climbing mountains or going on adventures. Thus, the sentiment seems that the time for death will eventually come, but it’s a great distance away and we’d have lived enough anyway.

Why should a college student be interested in such a question? Having experienced the loss of a friend early in life, I believe that there is no guarantee that death will happen after a life that has been fully lived. Sophia Hurtado, my friend, was unexpectedly diagnosed with a rare pancreatic cancer in high school. We used to be in Honors English 1 together, and you could tell when she walked into the room because, suddenly, the energy was brought to 100. She’d make everyone laugh and smile.

Sophia had abnormal health symptoms for over two years, but doctors hadn’t pieced them together, so her cancer advanced to Stage IV. Sophia had big dreams of attending college, revolutionizing the healthcare system to be more attentive to patients’ self-reported symptoms, and even becoming a healthcare worker herself to provide compassionate care for children. And, while a cure did not become a part of Sophia’s testimony, I wanted to share a few snippets from Sophia’s Cancer Chronicles Blog [1] that highlighted the presence of God in even the smallest moments.

On May 4, 2020, Sophia wrote about Addy, her personal aide who would wake up early to pray for her. That week, their prayers for a wheelchair ramp were answered when their neighbor kindly offered to help in building it. On July 6th, Sophia taught herself to walk again and wrote about John, a kind man who valeted at the hospital. He encouraged Sophia by sharing how he had been in a coma and similarly relearned to walk, although doctors didn’t believe it would be possible. Sophia ended that blog by saying: “Just remember that if you put your mind to it and push yourself and have faith, anything is possible and never give up. God brought you this far and have some faith that he will bring you farther.”

Sophia’s tumor responded to experimental treatment for a while, and she beat the odds doctors had originally projected, changing lives with her contagious spirit and hope throughout that time. Sophia was a role model to me through her faith because of the way she relied on God and shared the ways He worked in her everyday life. She had an incomparably resilient, loyal, and loving presence that failed to be explained by most human and earthly reasoning.

Our lives on Earth are the shortest parts of eternal life, but that is not to say that losses are not painful. Jesus was angry upon arriving at the tomb of His beloved friend Lazarus. However, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and overcame death Himself. Where we place our hopes, source our strengths, and rationalize our understanding of the end is not a trivial matter. The Lenten season reminds us what the end is—salvation and being reunited with God. God is our Father who is gracious, full of compassion, and slow to anger. “God so loved the world he sent his only Son.” [2] Jesus lived among us and paid the highest price for our sins, choosing a humbling, excruciating death on the cross for our salvation.

In Isaiah 49: 8–13 from today’s lectionary, we read:

Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;

break forth, O mountains, into singing!

For the Lord has comforted his people,

and will have compassion on his suffering ones.

We are reminded that we are God’s children and that God transforms our sufferings. God provides abundant sustenance—we find food along the way, the bare heights are our pastures, and all mountains become roads. [3] God remains unchanging in His faithfulness to us despite our shortcomings and doubtfulness in Him.

Returning to the question that motivated my research, I believe what we think of death and the end matters because it shapes where we source our strength while we’re alive. For me, that means leaning on God and being empowered with the confidence that no weapon or challenge formed against us will ultimately prosper because Jesus overcame the worst thing that can happen in earthly terms: death. As we grieve, we also remember that we will be reunited with our Heavenly Father and that we experience immeasurable joy because of Jesus’s sacrifice. I pray this Lenten season we will be transformed in hope through God’s promises for deliverance on Earth and the eternal peace God offers us.

SOURCES

[1] Sophia’s Cancer Chronicles Blog, https://hsophia050.wixsite.com/mysite/blog

[2] John 3:16

[3] Isaiah 49: 8, 10-11