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Quote by Thich Nhat Hanh

I grieve for this woman. France should be ashamed of itself today.  A horrible, debilitating disease from which there is NO relief.  The denying of the right to die for a mentally competent adult should be considered a crime against humanity. 

I fervently hope some brave person took it upon themselves to aid her in this quest for relief, relief from the physical pain and the unimaginable emotional pain of having your family watch as she turned from Maman to monster.  To that brave person: whoever you are, I’d hug you if I could.  Once the grief lessens, sleep well at night, you did the right thing.

The idea of losing a family member terrifies me.  I’ve been very lucky thus far- I didn’t lose anyone really close to me until I was 21.  It still affects me everyday.  Yet, the idea of watching a family member suffer in agony for an interminable period from a terminal illness… I can’t even put into words how scary that is. 

I’d like to find those people who rallied against this woman’s right to die.  I’d like to stuff red hot pins in all their appendages, and eyes, and stomach, and anything else it would take to get them to realize a life of agony is no life at all.  Like Hanh says, its fear of the unknown- fear of cosmic retrobution- fear of death that gives people the stubborn will to keep fighting when no hope is left, to suffer bravely and ask for no help.  This is the way a lot of people react to diblitating, painful illness.  However, when the pain is so great and the chance for recovery none existant, eventually a person moves past that fear and with head held high, walks proudly into that dark night.  Or tries to, until close-minded people with those same fears try to stop them.  Shame.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 2:05 pm and is filed under Ramblings, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.