Mercy
I smoke too much, especially when writing this blog. Do a post, take a smoke break. Respond to comments, smoke. Rinse, lather, repeat. It's taking its toll. I huff and puff and cough and sputter more than I did. (Suziema, you're not allowed to react to this. I don't want to self-censor for any sense of delicacy.)
For the record, if anything comes of it, I prefer to be DNR. I'm not one for pain and suffering. Pull the plug, and don't think twice about it.
This comes up because of an odd confluence of internet interactions in the past two days. My sister sent me an e-mail about putting down her pet, and I responded about us putting down our cat a few years ago. Then, my buddy out in Oregon responded to a joke I posted by saying, "You're killing me." To which I responded that he was at least in the right place, a reference to Oregon being the first state to legalize assisted suicide. Then, we have an elderly family member in assisted living who's suffering from dementia and depression, and probably a lot of pain. She cried out to a visitor the other day, "Why don't they just let me die!" It's not my side of the family, and it's not my place to weigh in. So I'm not. On that person, at least.
But we've all heard these arguments and discussions before. We're more merciful to our pets than we are to people. I've been through my father's long and painful demise, and more recently, two aunts. Jack Kevorkian was probably a little more activist than most people are comfortable with, but I always thought of him as a personal hero.
We're here for a brief blip of time, of history. We are who we are when we're healthy, or when we can heal to become ourselves again. We're someone and something else entirely when we're in the denouement of life, often. And that's a painful, tortuous, unnecessary, and expensive process. It's cruelty. And it has no purpose. All it does is stretch out the grief for those who will survive, for their own reasons, not for the victims. It's the worst form of legal torture. Criminal, really.
Put me down, when it's time. I will have no deathbed conversions to rethink this. And move on with your lives.
And I'm not much on ceremony. My funeral wish would be to just be stripped naked, put in the trash bin, head-first, and have the garbage men haul me to the dump. I'll be dead. What the hell do I care? I know, that's not possible. It should be, but it's not. So, whatever easiest thing we're legally permitted to do that approaches that idea, do it. And remember me fondly. Or at least honestly. Or forget me. It's your life. Mine would be over.
The Sad Case Of Terry Schiavo:
http://www.economist.com/node/3789436
Jack Kevorkian, a true American hero:
http://www.biography.com/people/jack-kevorkian-9364141
For the record, if anything comes of it, I prefer to be DNR. I'm not one for pain and suffering. Pull the plug, and don't think twice about it.
This comes up because of an odd confluence of internet interactions in the past two days. My sister sent me an e-mail about putting down her pet, and I responded about us putting down our cat a few years ago. Then, my buddy out in Oregon responded to a joke I posted by saying, "You're killing me." To which I responded that he was at least in the right place, a reference to Oregon being the first state to legalize assisted suicide. Then, we have an elderly family member in assisted living who's suffering from dementia and depression, and probably a lot of pain. She cried out to a visitor the other day, "Why don't they just let me die!" It's not my side of the family, and it's not my place to weigh in. So I'm not. On that person, at least.
But we've all heard these arguments and discussions before. We're more merciful to our pets than we are to people. I've been through my father's long and painful demise, and more recently, two aunts. Jack Kevorkian was probably a little more activist than most people are comfortable with, but I always thought of him as a personal hero.
We're here for a brief blip of time, of history. We are who we are when we're healthy, or when we can heal to become ourselves again. We're someone and something else entirely when we're in the denouement of life, often. And that's a painful, tortuous, unnecessary, and expensive process. It's cruelty. And it has no purpose. All it does is stretch out the grief for those who will survive, for their own reasons, not for the victims. It's the worst form of legal torture. Criminal, really.
Put me down, when it's time. I will have no deathbed conversions to rethink this. And move on with your lives.
And I'm not much on ceremony. My funeral wish would be to just be stripped naked, put in the trash bin, head-first, and have the garbage men haul me to the dump. I'll be dead. What the hell do I care? I know, that's not possible. It should be, but it's not. So, whatever easiest thing we're legally permitted to do that approaches that idea, do it. And remember me fondly. Or at least honestly. Or forget me. It's your life. Mine would be over.
The Sad Case Of Terry Schiavo:
http://www.economist.com/node/3789436
Jack Kevorkian, a true American hero:
http://www.biography.com/people/jack-kevorkian-9364141
Comments
As far as end of life procedures needlessly extending the suffering for loved ones, I think, as you allude to here, that often those loved ones themselves are to blame for those extensions as they cling to every last possible "hope" for a miracle - not really for the person dying, but for themselves. I know it's crass to judge anyone for decisions made at that time given the circumstances, but I just find it absurdly selfish.
That's why I will have instructions in place to remove those decisions as much as possible from my loved ones. That and I am not sure I trust them not to keep me alive as playtoy for their evil whims in some kind of sick karmic payback.