Last night I wrote a post to work through some feelings
about a family friend dying. I was vague
out of respect for the family’s privacy and was very upset when I wrote
it. I did not realize until today that
it could be misconstrued as a suicide note.
It wasn’t, but I can see how some people thought that.
In any case, it made me think about suicide, and I wasn’t
planning on talking about it, but since I am, I have a lot to say.
I don’t know when I first learned that suicide was a thing,
but it must have been early, because I had feelings about it in middle
school. I believe I became aware of it by
learning about Jack Kevorkian, which I know is not the same thing, but I’m
pretty sure I learned about both at the same time. I read books about it in the library to try
to figure out why someone would ever want to end their own life. They were descriptive but not
illuminating.
I have known several people who killed themselves. Some had obvious reasons. Some didn’t.
Some warned they would kill themselves.
Some didn’t. There is no
universal profile of a person who commits suicide beyond the fact that they are
all in a lot of pain. I do not think
people who kill themselves are cowardly.
I think they are sad, a kind of sad I have been fortunate enough to
never experience.
My cousin killed himself in the summer of 2011. He lived for almost two weeks between the day
he hanged himself and the day he was taken off life support. I know what it is to watch someone die. I know what it is to know that death must be
better than this fake life. I know what
the aftermath looks like, how you all learn to live around this hole. I know the damage suicide causes.
I read an article a few years ago about an organization that
helps people with terminal illnesses end their lives. It made me think a lot about life and illness
and suffering. These were people who
knew they would deteriorate, who knew they would become unable to care for
themselves, people in a lot of pain.
Because euthanasia is illegal in most places, these people had no
mechanism for ending their own lives if they got past the point where they
could do it themselves. They either had
to kill themselves while they were relatively able bodied or risk the
imprisonment of anyone who helped them.
I don’t think that’s fair.
I don’t think that you can lament all the time these people lost when
they have no safe way to wait until the last moment. When you live in a sick body, there is no guarantee
it will work tomorrow. And as a sick
person, I know the fear that you will be mentally aware but physically
incapable of executing even the most basic functions. The terror and humiliation felt at this
prospect is overwhelming.
I do not want to kill myself, but I think it should be my
right. I think you get to decide how to
end your story. I think that you get to
decide when you have had enough. If you
have reason to believe your life will truly never improve, to believe that you
will progressively deteriorate, I think you have the right to say that you don’t
want your family to watch you die. I’m
not saying terminally ill patients should kill themselves. I’m saying they should get to decide if it is
the best solution for them and their family.
There recently has been a story going around about a 29 year
old woman with a terminal brain cancer who has decided to end her life at a
time of her choosing. People have big
feelings about it, because it’s the kind of story that makes you look at your
own life really hard, and it makes you wonder what you would do in her place.
Some people think that she is courageous for choosing to end
her life. I’m not sure courageous is the
word I would use. I think these people
think it’s courageous because they have never been very sick and they have
never had to sit in a hospital room where their doctors gave them stark numbers
on average life expectancy. I don’t
think this is courageous. I think she is
scared of the damage she will do to others and she is scared of the pain and of
being helpless. That’s okay. It is her right to choose when she doesn’t
want to do this anymore. She feels this
is the right choice for her and her family.
Other people think that people should be telling her not to
kill herself. They think that if killing
yourself when you are sick means that you are a hero, then what does that mean
for all of the people who live until their bodies at last completely fail? Does that mean that those people aren’t
heroes?
And that is the point that all the healthy people of the
world are missing. Sick people aren’t
heroes. We are just people, and like everything
else in life, looking for worth in one person by comparing them to another is
unlikely to yield truth. Everyone’s life
is so individual that you can’t compare them effectively. So it is the same with sick people. This woman’s decision means nothing about the
sick people who choose not to kill themselves.
It just means that she felt that for herself, suicide was better than
suffering. For some sick people, just
having the choice is a comfort. Just
knowing that they can end their pain when they are really ready is enough
consolation sometimes.
I do not want to die. I do not want to kill myself. But if I got sick enough that I wanted, I
would hope that people wouldn’t talk about me like I was destroying their faith
in humanity because of a personal decision that I made for myself and my
family. I would hope that people would respect my right to die.
We are not heroes. We
are just people, trying to make the best choices we can.
I don't think it's just about whether or not we are heroes; but just the idea that there is more to life than this life and thus hero or not.... is it good to be the one to choose when to end life, when we weren't the one to make life in the first place. I hope that makes sense....but people try for many many years to have children and don't have a choice as to whether or not they actually get pregnant, despite hundreds of thousands of dollars in fertility. Clearly our choices help to make it possible, by having sex.... however....it's obviously not just about our choice. There is something far more than just US, at work. I think that's what it's about. The older I get, the less that I want to be a hero; but the more that I want to think about what happens when this one is done.
ReplyDelete<3 Thinking of you my friend :-)
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
ReplyDeleteLike most people, I have experienced suicide by someone close to me. I also have professional experience with suicide, suicide attempts and chronic debilitating and painful illnesses. I have difficulty coming to terms with some issues in this:
How to relate to children wanting to die?
How to relate to having another human kill you?
I find myself being able to relate to "both ends of the stick"..