little_tippler

I have to say your story is very moving. I am sorry for your pain...I cannot imagine.

I have to say that I feel that people should be allowed some dignity in their final moments.

I'm not sure about assisted death mainly because I know there would be people who would manipulate this "permission" in wrongful ways. But there is no such thing as bad knowledge...only people with intentions, well-meaning or harmful. But in order to achieve the good things, the bad things have to be let in to some extent as well - there is always a catch.

For me, I would want to be able to die if I reached a point where I could not think or decide or react for myself. I'd be happy to be in a home with decent conditions as long as I felt able to still do a few small things to give me some joy. I see no reason to end life when it is so short already...unless there is unnecessary pain and suffering.

My grandmother died recently and her death was of the most drawn out and awful I have seen...I felt so sad for her, it was like she was gone already. The worst was when she had small lucid moments when we could tell she was still in there...trying to live. And she was a most wonderful person...truly. It seemed so wrong, all that pain...and still does.

__________________
Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.

Fernando Pessoa, 1918