i dreamt i saw you walking
up a hillside in the snow
casting shadows on the winter sky
as you stood there counting crows
one for sorrow, two for joy,
three for girls, and four for boys,
five for silver, six for gold, and
seven for a secret never to be told

there's a bird that nests inside you
sleeping underneath your skin
when you open up your wings to speak
i wish you'd let me in

from "a murder of one" ~ counting crows
euthanasia

i was reading Marn and she was discussing her father and his prolonged illness and resulting lingering death.

My grandfather (father) died of complications of Alzheimer�s after over 15 years of living live a huge goldfish remembering only the last few minutes . . . his wife died from it with in 2 years. She was a nurse and had recently lost her husband . . . she knew what was happening to her. She had nursed her own husband through the exact same thing. She was terrified.

My grandfather (mom) was in and out of the hospital monthly, weekly, then daily in his last few years . . . but he had enough time in his last stay to schedule all his children to come see him and say goodbye, knowing he would never leave that hospital alive.

Why is it we can put our pets down and have it be heralded as the "humane" and "kind" thing to do, but if i was sick and dying, you could not gently let me go before i waste away and have all my organs break down and stop functioning or stumble on a train track and marvel at it until the train hits me?

After all i have been through i would never ever say that suicide is the right choice, but i am so scared that i will get Alzheimer�s and waste away and lose all that i am and all i know. Forget those people i've loved and the ones i've lost . . . forget who i am. i am nothing more than me and that is all right here in my head. i shiver and quake at the thought of living in the twilight i have visited once, in my years of pills and booze. Only this time there won't be a morning after or sobering up. There will be less and less until i am nothing. This is my greatest fear.

So, why can we not respect the wishes or a dying individual and let them say goodbye, hold some hands, dry some tears, leave strong memories of a strong human who was not broken? Why can we not stop the misery and pain of a slow lingering illness and be "humane" and "kind" to all involved instead of having some uninvolved people sit on their high moral standards and issue laws that prevent a final kindness?

please respond on the board


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confessed on 2001-01-29