It has been some time since I have been able to sit down and blog and I have missed it, hopefully someone else may have missed my words too either way I am back and trying to commit to a weekly conversation even with myself.
So for me today's topic is the choice to die.....
I have always been a fairly passionate advocate of the choice and the right to choose your own passing. Not the choice of desperation as in suicide but the right to choose if you are diagnosed with a terminal illness or really I suppose the right to choice if you have exhausted all other avenues and feel that you cannot possibly go further in this life at least there should be a tasteful and humane way to go. I have been prompted to write on this subject after watching a documentary this week by an English author - Terry Pratchett, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and was basically looking to weigh up his options before his inevitable end. The documentary followed the choices of 3 English men - 2 had Motor Neuron disease and 1 had very severe Multiple Sclerosis. All 3 of the men had looked into the option of ending their lives at a place in Switzerland that allows the choice to die in a legal way. One of the men with Motor Neuron chose to live out his time in a hospice in complete care and come what may, the other 2 men having weighed up their options decided to take the path of completing their time on earth in Switzerland at their own hand (through ingesting a poison) at a selected time. This was not a light or flippant decision and the man with MS had already attempted suicide twice and felt that this was his time to go before he was unable physically to take the poison which would mean he had no other choice but to be trapped within a withering body and wait for the time to come. The most powerful part of this show was that Terry (and his assistant) were allowed to follow the entire journey of the older gentleman (he was a true English gentleman, he even used the term 'one' when referring to himself) all the way through until the end...Yes they remained and filmed this man's demise with his wife and a carer by his side. (big sigh...)
I don't know how anyone else would feel but for me even with the distance of television and not knowing this man at all, to witness the end of someones life was a hugely moving experience, I cried and cried......I cried at how beautiful it was that his wife was there to hold him, I cried at the loss of this seemingly lovely human being and I cried at the fact that this poor man could not choose to die in his own country, in his own home as he would have wished due to the legal system in England and most of the world...another big sigh......
Most of the options for this service were for terminal illness etc but there was also a statement that said 'for those weary of life' which is an interesting way to I guess say suicidal, or maybe just at the age that you have had enough? I'm not entirely sure but there was many meetings with doctors and psychiatrists leading up to the event and the constant question 'Do you want to do this? Do you want to die?' so it was not a flippant or impulsive service and while I guess some may see that as a selfish act, is it not more selfish to expect someone to stay and see out 'their time' in agony or utter frustration and despair until there is nothing left of the person that once was?
This is an extremely personal choice and no one person can be sure of which road they may take given a particular circumstance or illness. In fact there was shelves of files at the clinic of the people who had investigated the choice of ending their life and had chosen not take the option so it seemed that just knowing they could allowed them to not take that path.
Being the over thinker that I am, I am left to ponder the thought...At what point would I choose to die? What about you???
