
Click below for story synopsis and excerpts:
The Lens and the Looker
The Bronze and the Brimstone
The Loved and the Lost
Dear Diary #2, Back to work, my mother’s passing and socialized healthcare
Dear Diary #2
Back on November 17th, I wrote the first blog of what would be my morning writing exercise, before getting to work writing. The plan was (and is) that the blogs would be based on the research I do for novels which includes a mixture of history, technology and speculative fiction. However, those plans were waylaid by my 90 year-old mother having another in a series of major strokes. I then chronicled her journey till a few days before she peacefully passed on December 1st, 2013. That was just over two weeks ago. She donated her body to Queens University in Kingston, Ontario. We just had a wonderful memorial for her and so many people showed up. It was an amazing turnout for someone who has so few contemporaries left.
So, now it’s back to work on Between Two Rivers, the first novel of a new series based in Mesopotamia, circa 2350 BCE, and the aforementioned blogs. I’ll start that tomorrow. But I want to write a few more paragraphs about my mother’s passing, primarily for my readers in the United States. It has to do with socialized medicine.
I am constantly shocked and amazed, and sometimes I howl with laughter, about the crazy debate about socialized medicine in the USA. From an outsider’s perspective, it appears that the corporate powers and medical lobbies down there have the populace brainwashed to think they have a viable system. However, besides your US system being the most expensive ON THE PLANET, it gives your population as a whole very poor service. Even the new Obamacare system, while a small step in the right direction, still puts the foxes in charge of the hen house.
But it isn’t my intention to initiate a debate about American healthcare in this forum. If readers are moved by what I have to say next, (having to do with my mom) you will have to do your own research and take your own actions.
What I want to do in this blog, is to report to my fellow human beings in the fifty US states, that my mother received fantastic care from our socialized healthcare in her final months. There was no agenda to end her life by a death panel. She was kept comfortable, and it was my mother, sister and I who made the decision to stop life-prolonging intervention. As for myself and my family – and all my Canadian friends – I’ve never had a friend or relative whose life was put at risk because of some insurance company gatekeeper making decisions for a doctor. And while there has been serious illness in my family and among my friends, our homes and savings were never at risk to some insurance company by being under insured or by co-pays. And no, our system is not perfect. There is no such thing. But it’s better for the majority and cheaper for society. Heck, our roads, public schools, armies, infrastructures, etc, are socialized. Why not healthcare?
That’s all I wish to say on the matter. Now it’s time to get back to the personal pursuit that gives me the most joy in life, besides my family. That is, my writing. I haven’t written in over three weeks and my creative well is hopefully recharged.
Cheers
Lory Kaufman
December 16, 2013