Death and Dying

Last week we all went for a few hours to the malnourished infant/toddler rooms in the hospital. I spent most of my time with Dennis, who had Down's syndrome, and was 18 months old, but looked much younger. He was very skilled at blowing raspberries, and continually banged the IV apparatus on his arm against anything he could, including my face while I was feeding him. It looked like he was doing fine, but I was informed this week that he died. I've always seen the logic in the theory that God doesn't hold infants and children up to a certain age accountable for their sins if they die, but the weight of this issue has never hit me like this before, or at all. I wonder if its irreverent to think God would be wrong to condemn Dennis to hell.
Wednesday morning Ben and I worked in that same department of the hospital. I shadowed a pediatric doctor and the five residents or students who worked for him. It was a cool system; they just brought a cart and chairs with them, and went from room to room and bed to bed checking each patient, taking notes, diagnosing and treating them right there. I watched them pump a boy's stomach to diagnose tuberculosis. I wondered if I have what it takes to do whatever is medically necessary for the best of someone as I watched the young boy convulse and shriek in discomfort as they fed a tube through his nose to his stomach. There are two or three children who have TB right now in the hospital. Another boy who might have tuberculosis, Fabio, was the thinnest kid I've ever seen. It was really unnatural looking and shocking when they examined his body. It looked like he was too weak to lift his arms or move his head at all, but it seems he couldn't anyway; I think one of the residents said something about him being paralyzed.