My mother died in 2011.
Her body died on August
7, 2013 .
My wish for all of us is that our bodies and minds will go
at the same time, but all too often that's not the case. It would seem that physical
medical science is regrettably ahead of mental medical science. My guess is they
could medicate/hook a person up to live until the Cubs win the World Series.
That, to me, doesn’t meet the definition of living.
When I can’t do the things that make me, me; like using a toilet,
recognizing my wife and kids and getting food directly into my mouth, maybe
it’s time to move on to what ever is next.
I know most significant end of life issues are primarily religious
issues so, let’s talk about that. If a person strongly believes that God put us
on this earth and he’s the only one that can allow us to leave, then for a
person with that belief things should stay the same. But, if you were to
believe that a loving God would not want his finest creation (after Labrador
Retrievers) to permanently lose all that made them humans, maybe we as a
society ought to revise how we view our last days.
My mother asked for death for the last couple of years. We
who loved her had to sit and watch and deny her any relief from her mental pain.
I’m sure some would say she was not in
her “right mind,” and I would agree. This is just why she should have been unshackled
from a non functioning body and her “wrong mind.” My mother would have been mortified at what she
looked and sounded like at the end. As “wrong minded” as she was, she knew at
some primal level what she needed.
Everybody I’ve talked to about this subject agrees they don’t
want the ending that society and medical science seem to have in mind for us. It’s important for us to be sure those making
end of life decisions for us (including our doctors) know what we want and are
willing to carryout our wishes to the best of their ability and within the
current law. Today in most of the US
exiting a life with no quality when we want to exit, is not an easy option. Hopefully
that will change, but probably not in our life times (pardon the pun).
There are worse things than dying and living maybe one of
them.
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