On child mortality rate decline globally, and my grandma...

I read alot of news online everyday. We don't have a TV and I don't feel like having a TV blasting news or junk in my fact. I prefer to pull, rather than pull, model (ie. I pick and get the news whenever and wherever I want; but I do not want news dumped on me). Except for Fortune, I pretty much cancel all mail subscriptions, and move all subscriptions online. It's my one luxury when I'm not online, so that I have a copy in my hand while I sip my coffee.

This morning, I was reading the news on child mortality rate globally (in particular, in developing countries) has declined. It's great news. Thousands of children are saved daily. If I put myself in the shoes of those parents and mothers, and find that I can save my child from some diseases that are perfectly preventable and curable, I would be over the moon.

Some 2/3 down the article, it talks about the infrastructure put in place to deliver these simple care to these rural people in Africa which have saved so many lives. The same infrastructure is used to deliver other care, including provision of birth control. Interviews of women indicate how life-changing this has been. For a change in life, they can instantly regain the control of their lives. As one woman aptly put it, if she had a choice, she would have four children, instead of nine, because she can barely feed them with the harvest from her tiny plot of barren land, let alone trying to save them from illness. If she had had less children, she could provide better care for them.

I was reading, then starring at the screen, quite speechless. The child mortality rate is mother nature's way of telling these poor souls that they cannot afford to have more children, so Darwinism would have to pick and choose. I was speechless, because it's such an awful idea, just thinking about it. Women in the western world and more developed countries have had access to birth control, which allows them to plan out their life, including life-changing events like when to have children. Those poor women in Africa do not have a choice. When their husbands want it, they have to give. I can't imagine how those poor women keep getting pregnant and bearing children every year. These women are not stupid. They want the same birth control choice that their western counterparts have.

And then, my thoughts turn to George W Bush, of how during his presidency, he directed government funding to cut off birth control and abortion service for developing countries, in return for getting aid. This was done all in the name of God. Conservatives can't sing enough praises to Bush, but they hardly care about what kind of lives those poor women and babies have.

I believe in God and the Bible, even though I'm not that religious. I can understand the position of Vatican and where Bush came from. I have to stress that I value lives as well. But this brings me back to my original (and very first) thought, after I read the article. If mother nature and God have not intended those unwanted babies to live, what should one do? I do not, in any way, believe that we can stand by and watch babies die. They are flesh and blood, just like us. But if we have playing god, and save those that nature has not intended them to live; shouldn't we be doing the same about prevention in the first place? Why is birth control so evil that it has to be banned, given that it's possibly the only tool that these women have in putting some orders and control in their hands?

No doubt, I'm looking at the issue from a totally pragmatic view, without regard of what the Bible says. I do believe, though, that we should either take all the steps consistently from one side, or the other. We either refrain birth control from these poor women, let them procreate and multiply, and let the babies die naturally; or we put in our might to save as many as we can, but give the women the tool to do what nature would have them do (if you can't afford the baby, don't bring the baby to this world).

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All these thoughts bring me back to my paternal grandmother. She died more than 20 years ago when she's in her late 90s. (I think she was 97 or 98 when she passed away.) She suffered a stroke which paralyzed her. She remained hospitalized and unconscious for one month, before she died naturally. I remember when I got the news, I rushed to the hospital with my brother to see her. I couldn't help my tears when I opened the door to her room and saw the tubes and needles all over her. Prior to the visit, my mom had a talk with us, who told us that the situation (with grandma in a coma) could drag on for years. Mom wanted us to be prepared, that all of us would have to help out when grandma moved in with us.

Before I opened that door, I had secretly hoped that grandma would live, if only for just a bit more time. I still remember vividly feeling how selfish I had been, for wishing her to live, once I opened that door and saw the condition she was in. Living in coma and tubes/needles in a bed is not a life I would wish grandma to have for her remaining years. Afterall, I wouldn't want that for myself either.

That night, we got a phone call from the hospital. It's probably around 3am. It's a quick request for us to go to the hospital to see grandma. We all knew what's coming. Us kids went to our rooms and got dressed quickly and in silence. Mom and dad were in the kitchen preparing something. We got in a cab, ran up to grandma's room, and saw her lying in bed, as if she's sleeping most peacefully. I touched her hand gently and felt it ice cold. She had passed away for quite some time, but the nurses did not know. I looked at grandma and said my goodbye to her in my heart.

Mom instructed us to not touch grandma's body, probably due to some ancient Chinese superstitions (and there are many). I didn't see the big deal of it. When mom got the stuffs from her bag she and dad were preparing in the kitchen, I realized what they were for. Among those was a small coffee mug filled with red dates and water. Mom was muttering something under her breath, no doubt wishing a good afterlife for grandma. Then, mom used a spoon to feed some to grandma's mouth, to bring sweetness to her in her afterlife. Naturally, since grandma was pretty stiff already, all the red dates water dripped down her cheek onto the pillow.

I remember the only other feelings that I had was one of relief. I was relief not only for the living, but for the dead. I don't think anyone wants a life like that.

Parents organized a Chinese funeral for grandma, with all the traditions like burning tons of paper money and paper-made everything (houses, cars, bridges, etc) for grandma's afterlife. I've always wonder how the paper stuffs can support grandma. After everything's done at the funeral hall, it's customary to have a feast for everyone who came to the funeral. This was to bring back smiles to everyone...supposedly. When we got home after the feast, dad broke down and cried. That was the first and only time I ever saw him cry. He's a very dutifully son, and he loved her very much. Somehow, he felt that she had preference for the elder daughter (ie. my paternal aunt), and she would scrap by everything, including food and every dollar that my dad gave her, and pass them to the daughter. I never knew my dad had bored that deep bitterness for so long.

Grandma was very easily satisfied. She's not ambitious. She could stay at home, napping or doing nothing all day long. She's happy with those few daily routines she had. When I was very young, she used to tell me stories about the nature (how she would go to the river and catch fish for family meals; how she identified different kinds of birds). Given that this was 19th century, her stories would only mean one thing, which is that she had had a hard life. Some years back, dad made a cryptic comment, that grandma had not been the first wife of granddad. (I never knew him. He died naturally when my dad was 15.) Dad said grandma might have married granddad after he's widowed or something. That might have indicated that grandma might have had a previous marriage, but she never talked about it with dad, hence he never knew. Now, that history died with her.

A few years after grandma died, I was chitchatting with mom. She said, if it had been in the olden days, grandma would have died almost rightaway from that stroke. There will be no prolonged suffering on her part, and no extended angst on the descendants. But modern medicine changes all that. We put her on life support, without asking for her permission, thinking that that's what she would have wanted. But did she, at the age of 97 or 98? I have always had serious doubts that she did.

One of these days, I'll write a bit more on the little that I know of the grandparents (both maternal and paternal side), so my children would know.