Assisted suicide seems, on the surface, to be a very good thing. But it can be abused. When my brother was faced with the decision to place our parents in the nursing home, it was no decision for he and my sister in law at all. They were retiring and wanted to take off on vacation in the warmer south. Mom died two months after going into the facility and dad died the day that she did but it took him eight months to get the physical job done.
As an insurance agent, we have seen the personal satisfaction that so many of our clients had taking care of their parents in their last years of life. We have friends doing the same thing now. It is taxing on those doing the care giving but there can be a reward at the end that stays with one until the end of their days.
As for me personally, I have given it all a lot of thought and I will willingly enter a nursing home when my time comes to do so if given that chance. If I am mentally up to it I will attempt to brighten everyone’s day who is there with my humor and my past memories of times that we can all mutually remember. If I am not up to it I will try to be quiet and bother as few as I possibly can. But, no one knows what their personal circumstance might be until their time comes.
I have a seventy seven year old aunt who is the person of decision for a ninety three year old widow who has no children or any other close relative who lies close to death now in a nursing home. She and I both believe that God will take her in his own good time. She has no resuscitation orders just as my aunt and I both have as well.
We are entering an age where it might be convenient for the government to use dignified death as a way to unburden itself from those obligations that it really does not care to honor or uphold, regardless of what the person, lying there helpless and alone, might desire or want. As for me personally, as long as I can be of any use at all to anyone, I want to remain. I want the decision of death left up to a loving and caring God who I personally feel knows what is best for everyone and everything and who has a great plan to handle it all.
Life is so often a struggle and the end of it may very well reflect what the entire breadth of it has been. And, we never know just who might benefit from seeing that process go forward until its ultimate conclusion. We had a friend who committed suicide last year even though he was in good physical health and had much to offer his wife and to his friends and we are still mystified by that as we see so many who struggle to live who would have given much to have what he had and so quickly gave away.
We remember reading the struggles that Nancy Reagan had with her husband as he and she dealt with Alzheimer’s disease. And we remember the description of when he died and the look of recognition and love that he gave her just before he went that might have made it all worth it in the end.
The ability to end life is a very powerful thing. I have a small, old cat that I am driving 350 miles a week just to get her the life giving fluids that keep her smile and her countenance with me for a while longer. The ability to end life, any life, is a very powerful thing.
Regards,
Joe
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