When I die, I would prefer to do so in company, not alone with machines. I especially want to have the company of those I love around me, to hear their prayers whispered in my ears, to feel their hands grasping my hands. Such prayer, such touch could ease my journey from this world to the world to come. But will the people I love be able to break through the sterile barricades so often erected between the dying and the living by the American health care system?
We have expurgated death from what we see. We are warned in the United States that television news images of death and violence may disturb some viewers or are unsuitable for children (except, alas, for the children who have to undergo such death and violence). The news media in the United States blurred out the face of the Syrian child, Aylan Kurdi, who drowned off the coast of Turkey in 2015. The message: Don't disturb American viewers.
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