The health benefit: challenge death with compassion

[Guest guest]

Years ago, after I had been vegan a few years, a vegan friend -

an elderly lady who just a few years before had encouraged me

to become vegan, herself an energetic, seemingly indomitable

animal activist, began to skip meetings and protests.

 

This lady had founded several animal rights organizations

in Boston - CEASE, ARC, etc. and upon her retirement

from the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston had been honored

as New England's " Humanitarian of the Year " by the

New England Anti-Vivisection Society (www.NEAVS.org)

with a massively-publicized, well-attended banquet in her honor.

 

Her friends and acquaintances from throughout New England

attended, plus a number of well-known Boston dignitaries.

I remember sitting with a professional couple who later became

active organizers in the Boston Vegetarian Society, which I

had helped to put together a year or two later, as I became

more adept at selling the idea of vegetarianism and

of vegetarians getting together as local vegetarian groups.

 

However, within a relatively short period of time following this

event this lovely vegan lady began declining in her health,

immediately upon resigning from the Federal Reserve.

What had happened? Had she lost the will to survive?

Hardly. Work wasn't her only meaning? Organizing was.

Or was it?

 

Of course, we expected vegans to " get the health benefit "

from veganism, regardless of their reasons for being vegan.

Yet how typical of me to worry, as a relatively " new vegan " ,

that indeed something might be wrong. Doubt assailed me.

I'm a relatively honest person intellectually, and the question

deserved further investigation. Why was this vegan failing

as such a relatively young age, I wondered?

 

I'm sure, of course, that seniors -- even vegetarian and

vegan seniors - have health and emotional issues that

the majority of us in the activist community don't recognize,

although we will eventually begin to find clarity there.

 

Yet I watched this lady slowly lose strength, fail to appear

at meetings and protests, and eventually end up in

one local hospital after another.

 

" Maynard, don't complain about her lack of commitment.

She's a very sick woman> " I was told. -- And she was.

She was dying of cancer in her late sixties.

 

I was floored. How could a committed ethical vegan

die of cancer? Wasn't there a health benefit from

avoiding meat and animal products? Not only was

this person a significant person in my own meaning

structure, having smoothed my dietary shifts, but the

facts of her medical case puzzled me enough to struggle

for real answers.

 

How can one watch another die, except in silent respect

and diligent attention, ministering to their physical needs.

Yet, as we search for our own answers to this one common

puzzle of veganism, that vegans suffer and do eventually

pass from us, sometimes in a painful end, lacking

understanding can make our empathic waiting even more

difficult for us, and the silence of others can seem cruel

when doubts plague us as from demonic suggestion:

" Are you SURE you're on the right path? There must be SOME

reason why the establishment is so systematically cruel. "

 

We'd rather be a chorus of angels watching on the sidelines,

though our tortured humanity was internally evidence.

With her other friends, I watched this dear vegan lady shrivel

and die in deep pain that caused her to gradually fail to recognize

even friends like me, which was a double hurt. Yes, and she DID

shrivel up and die, very horribly and painfully, suffering great pain

she would have spared others. We were fellow vegans --

she not yet 70, and I in my 20's - just out of Harvard. Why?

 

Should I turn back? Oh, no. That's not right. Animals DO matter,

but so do I. Are there other WAYS to be vegan. Why not

natural hygiene? It's not THAT inconvenient, just unpopular.

 

This vegan whose strategic handholding had guided my early

" first vegan steps " as I questioned and stepped carefully,

eliminating one hinsic practice after another, was drying up

before us all, elan vital ebbing, barely an abstract notion.

 

A few months after this ladies sad passing, her closest friend

in life, a fellow vegan, also from the Federal Reserve, who

had herself persuaded this lady to become vegan,

confided in me that yes, this lady had silently suffered

for over twenty-five years as a vegan -- without mentioning

her terminal cancer, long known to be fatal, had been in

remission all those years -- and not one of us knew.

We had no reason to know.

 

Yes, she died as a vegan, but being vegan

had ALSO allowed her to live and quite well, indeed -

both happily and productively, and of great benefit to

many, many others. She had made her life meaningful

in her commitment to help others become less callous and

more empathic. She challenged death with compassion.

And, in our extended reality, isn't that a KIND of health?

 

Yes, in a quarter century I've seen vegan friends and acquaintances

suffer heart attacks and strokes - even those vegans who consume

heart healthy soy - and occasional cancers, and in each such case

the suffering vegan had what insurers call " a pre-existing condition " .

 

Medical facts aren't simple; they're medical. Many issues really

ARE on the table. Insurers want to consider pre-existing conditions,

and a complex thicket of issues surrounds access to medical services.

Genetics and pre-existing conditions complicate our rush towards

vegan advocacy, and there are uncertainties about soy, allergenicity,

biochemical individuality, vitamins, stimulants, rest, exercise,

other lifestyle practices, the worry and empathy we share as vegans

and as activists, and the constant challenge to work ourselves to death.

Yet simply put, not only are vegan ways more humane, but I have

the scientific confidence that clear and honest inquiry will make

crystal clear that we vegans are on solid medical ground and that

we WILL enjoy " the health benefit " after all, and will be able to

share that " health benefit " with others whose paths we can illuminate.

 

Maynard S. Clark

 

Maynard Clark is the Executive Director of the Vegetarian Resource Center,

a longtime resident of the Boston MA area, and approaching a quarter century

as a vegan, and enjoys " making connections for plant-based diets "

both organizationally and educationally.

 

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