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Rainyshoes · 02-27-2005, 04:00 PM

Understood, kid astronaut...and I don't entirely disagree with that. But how does that hold up against the suicide victim who took specific measures to NOT go on living? Or the cancer victim in so much pain and anguish that they're pleading to be allowed to die and the folks who sought out Dr. Kervorkian because medical conditions rendered life unbearable for them?

It's not unlike (nor too distant from) planning the funeral. Certain songs may be chosen...or certain things said...or certain burial outfits selected...or certain special actions done (perhaps, say, sprinkling ashes in a particular location the deceased loved)...in an attempt by the living to create what they think the deceased would have wanted. But, in the end, whose benefit is the funeral really for? I think it's for the ones who are alive to experience it. The dead know no different (*see my end note on this statement).

The finer points of debate actually lead to the widely-varied ways people grieve, or what prompts them to grieve and what to grieve for...so I think there's really no one "right" answer. For a little child that dies in a car accident, there are going to be people that grieve for all the years we think he had left in front of him...that we think were going to be happy and trouble-free years...and that we think he would have enjoyed. Others (which is where I think I lean more toward) take a look at the child's parents sitting in the memorial service, their shoulders shaking with their sobs and the pain of losing their son etched on their face, and feel like my heart is being ripped out at the thought of these people living with the pain of this for the rest of their lives.

So I guess all my yammering was the long way of saying "Yep...you've got a point too, but I think there's more than one answer"

(*By the way, I'm deliberately keeping afterlife musings out of this because that's a whole different ball of wax that convolutes the original premise of the thread...so, for the sake of this argument, I'm speaking of dead as an absolute biological ending).

02-27-2005, 04:00 PM	#20 (permalink)
Rainyshoes Upright Location: Roadside	Understood, kid astronaut...and I don't entirely disagree with that. But how does that hold up against the suicide victim who took specific measures to NOT go on living? Or the cancer victim in so much pain and anguish that they're pleading to be allowed to die and the folks who sought out Dr. Kervorkian because medical conditions rendered life unbearable for them? It's not unlike (nor too distant from) planning the funeral. Certain songs may be chosen...or certain things said...or certain burial outfits selected...or certain special actions done (perhaps, say, sprinkling ashes in a particular location the deceased loved)...in an attempt by the living to create what they think the deceased would have wanted. But, in the end, whose benefit is the funeral really for? I think it's for the ones who are alive to experience it. The dead know no different (see my end note on this statement). The finer points of debate actually lead to the widely-varied ways people grieve, or what prompts them to grieve and what to grieve for...so I think there's really no one "right" answer. For a little child that dies in a car accident, there are going to be people that grieve for all the years we think* he had left in front of him...that we think were going to be happy and trouble-free years...and that we think he would have enjoyed. Others (which is where I think I lean more toward) take a look at the child's parents sitting in the memorial service, their shoulders shaking with their sobs and the pain of losing their son etched on their face, and feel like my heart is being ripped out at the thought of these people living with the pain of this for the rest of their lives. So I guess all my yammering was the long way of saying "Yep...you've got a point too, but I think there's more than one answer" (*By the way, I'm deliberately keeping afterlife musings out of this because that's a whole different ball of wax that convolutes the original premise of the thread...so, for the sake of this argument, I'm speaking of dead as an absolute biological ending).