‘Sendino se muere’: How to Die with Dignity

A review of ‘Sendino se muere’, by Pablo d’Ors; Galaxia Gutenberg, 2020.

Pablo d’Ors said in an interview some years ago that there is no longer a ‘literature of light’. We have fallen in love with the shadow, and now find ourselves in the dark. Asked by a hospital librarian to recommend a hundred books that would comfort the sick, d’Ors could come up with just one: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince (‘The Little Prince’), a story written for children. He would have been too humble to recommend his own literature of light — books such as the matchless Biografía del silencio (‘Biography of Silence’) or the subject of this review: Sendino se muere (‘Sendino Dies’), an account of the last few years in the life of an extraordinary doctor, Africa Sendino.

Diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer in 1999, Dr. Sendino and d’Ors, who was the chaplain at the hospital where she worked, made a deal: d’Ors would work from notes Sendino had been taking about her illness, and write, as faithfully as he could, about how she faced and lived out her final days. The resulting book is a poignant commentary on dying, woven throughout which are Sendino’s own observations and recollections: ‘“Thanks to the disease that I suffer” — Sendino wrote of her double experience as doctor and patient — “I have understood that sharing pain does not simply mean taking on the pain of others, but of offering one’s own.”

Sendino’s elegance, compassion, lack of self-pity, and abundant hope, serenity, and faith, are not shaken by her diagnosis or physical decline.

The idea of dignity, in particular as it pertains to pain and suffering, runs throughout what is a slim if powerful book. Sendino’s elegance, compassion, lack of self-pity, and abundant hope, serenity, and faith, are not shaken by her diagnosis or physical decline, but rather grow. D’Ors describes how he believed that the the conversations he had with her in his role as chaplain would console her, but left each encounter feeling that he was the one who benefitted more. He does not hesitate in saying that he believes Sendino’s life and death mark her out as exemplary. ‘If it is true that the final days and even the final hours of the life of a person symbolise well what that person was or wanted to be, then I can only think that Sendino was that which Catholicism understands as a saint.’

A book of this kind always carries the risk of slipping into sentimentality — into an inappropriate focus on the emotion of the subject, rather than on the person or situation that elicits his feeling. But it never does; and this in part is because d’Ors and Sendino esteem higher human virtues: fortitude, humility, dignity, charity, faith — cardinal or ‘heavenly’ virtues in the Christian tradition. Sendino’s illness as such is not the point: the point is how that fatal illness, and the experience of dying, cast light on other people for Sendino, inspires her, enriches her, and makes her a better doctor. ‘She was seeing medicine from the side of the sick, which she believed would help her to become a better professional.’

D’Ors never makes this little story about himself, but rather stands back, as it were, in an unfeigned posture of gratitude and wonder.

D’Ors renders all this with typical lucidity, economy, attention, and care. But stylistically what comes across most strongly is his admiration. D’Ors never makes this little story about himself, but rather stands back, as it were, in an unfeigned posture of gratitude and wonder. In doing so, he underscores the ordinary and everyday heroism of so many others — not just medical professionals, but those who live to serve others without any desire for recognition, and who are not just the heart but the soul of any civilised society, lifting all of us up through their diligence and self-sacrifice, enriching our lives and inspiring us to be better.

This is not a book like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Notes on Grief or Denise Riley’s Time Lived Without Its Flow. It is not about the pain of loss, about mourning, about confusion, about pain. It is rather an affirmation of life and the inherent dignity of all human beings. In the sick, d’Ors sees the spiritual sickness from which we all suffer — our egocentricity, and the fear which springs from it — and the physical sickness which, in the end, will end the lives of the vast bulk of us. In sickness, d’Ors sees humanity; but in Sendino in particular, he sees humanity’s power of accepting things as they are, and so rising above them, of ennobling and dignifying ourselves. The sheer admiration of Pablo d’Ors, and his gratitude at having had the honour of being with Sendino during her last days, is deeply moving. It shines through on every page.