On Dignity: Rehabilitating Life in Society
July 10, 2021
Paul Louis Metzger
Adoring Dad Christopher and Adored Daughter Jaylah (photo taken by Keyonna Metzger)
Dignity is a rather slippery word. It’s hard to get a handle on it. I have been thinking a lot about dignity given my son Christopher’s traumatic brain injury that he suffered in January this year.
One example comes to mind, which triggered further reflection. Recently, a medical leader at my son’s rehabilitative care facility told me that they want to keep a sheet covering over Christopher’s person in bed to affirm his dignity. We had been discussing how much to cover him given that he perspires easily when warm, even when the air conditioning is running strong during the summer months. The medical personnel weren’t adding to Christopher’s dignity, but honoring it. So they cover him rather than expose him. This medical leader and her colleagues were acting toward Christopher in a dignified way.
By Alan Riach Professor of Scottish Literature at Glasgow University
Essay
Kathleen MacInnes plays Kay Matheson, who helped bring the Stone of Destiny back to Scotland in 1950, in the film An Ceasnachadh/Interrogation of a Highland Lass DUNCAN Ban MacIntyre’s last visit to Ben Dorain on September 19, 1802 prompted the following day his composition, “Last Leave-taking of the Bens”, a moving farewell to the mountains, especially Ben Dorain, which his 18th-century poetry sang of so piercingly. It’s an old man’s elegy recollecting the energies of youth, the chase of the greyhound quickening as its owner’s breath becomes more laboured.