{"id":39463,"date":"2017-06-23T10:38:53","date_gmt":"2017-06-23T09:38:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=39463"},"modified":"2017-06-28T09:20:33","modified_gmt":"2017-06-28T08:20:33","slug":"richard-smith-has-my-mother-been-given-the-gift-of-forgetting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2017\/06\/23\/richard-smith-has-my-mother-been-given-the-gift-of-forgetting\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Smith: Has my mother been given \u201cthe gift of forgetting?&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2014\/12\/richard_smith_2014.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-33037\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2014\/12\/richard_smith_2014-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"richard_smith_2014\" width=\"128\" height=\"128\" \/><\/a>This morning I read the line \u201cThe gift of forgetting\u201d in a poem by Wis\u0142awa Szymborska. Immediately I asked myself if it is a gift to forget, and quickly\u2014and somewhat counterintuitively\u2014decided it was.<\/p>\n<p>Something else that I\u2019d read this morning in a book by a neurosurgeon supported the conclusion. Henry Marsh in his uncomfortably honest book <em>First Do No Harm<\/em> writes about his many failures, the failures that are an unavoidable part of neurosurgery as well as his many mistakes, and is grateful that he has forgotten most of them. He speculates that the greatest neurosurgeons may be the ones who are least disturbed by their failures and most able to forget them quickly.<\/p>\n<p>And inevitably I think of my mother, who has spent 10 years without any short term memory and with her long term memory fading progressively. Is her forgetting a gift?<\/p>\n<p>Then I think of a workshop I was doing in Bangalore last week. As so often, I was diverted into my near party piece of asking people how they wanted to die. There are four broad options: sudden death, organ failure, cancer, and the long slow death of dementia or frailty. As usual, everybody except one participant opted for sudden death. But the one exception was the person most familiar with death and dying: a palliative care physician who is also an anthropologist. He opted for dementia\/frailty.<\/p>\n<p>I must have asked this question to around 500 people by now. Nobody has ever opted for organ failure, and only one other person has opted for dementia\/frailty. A few have opted for cancer, and <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2014\/12\/31\/richard-smith-dying-of-cancer-is-the-best-death\/\">I created a global storm by arguing that cancer<\/a>, with its relative quickness and opportunity to say goodbye, was the best.<\/p>\n<p>But I have begun to change. I visit my mother almost every week, and the hour and a bit we spend together is enjoyable. I\u2019ve always been glad when I cycle away, but perhaps because I\u2019m getting so used to the nursing home and its gallimaufry of inhabitants I\u2019m beginning to come round to the idea that perhaps the long, slow death of dementia is not so bad. You slowly fade away, casting aside the worries of the world, abdicating gracefully all responsibilities, and forgetting who you are and even that you are going to die. When death finally comes calling his touch may be very light\u2014no raging against the dying of the light.<\/p>\n<p>All this thinking has had a practical effect. Like many doctors I have boasted that I will kill myself if I know I\u2019m becoming demented, always doubting that I\u2019d actually have the courage to do so. Now I\u2019m resigned to dementia if that is to be my fate. That\u2019s progress.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Richard Smith<\/strong>\u00a0was the editor of\u00a0<\/em>The BMJ<em>\u00a0until 2004.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Competing interests:<\/strong>\u00a0None declared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This morning I read the line \u201cThe gift of forgetting\u201d in a poem by Wis\u0142awa Szymborska. Immediately I asked myself if it is a gift to forget, and quickly\u2014and somewhat [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2017\/06\/23\/richard-smith-has-my-mother-been-given-the-gift-of-forgetting\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[955],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-richard-smith"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Richard Smith: Has my mother been given \u201cthe gift of forgetting?&quot; - The BMJ<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2017\/06\/23\/richard-smith-has-my-mother-been-given-the-gift-of-forgetting\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Richard Smith: Has my mother been given \u201cthe gift of forgetting?&quot; - The BMJ\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This morning I read the line \u201cThe gift of forgetting\u201d in a poem by Wis\u0142awa Szymborska. 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