Dying with dignity

I’ve seen life, death and everything in between, shook hands with the devil and shared a drink with the reaper, I am not afraid to die.  I don’t want to expect that when I die there is a reward for me for how ever I behaved, whether good or bad, and that should the curtains close and there is no encore I would be perfectly ok with that.  But having been given this life I have also been given the option to do with it as I please and be who I want to be, murderer, priest, asshole, saint, my fucking decision.  I don’t know about you but when my end comes I’m going out swinging.

I saw the documentary HOW TO DIE IN OREGON this weekend and it made me think about my last days on this planet of ours.  The documentary follows a few people who have chosen to be able to decide when their final day is, due to some terminal disease or age and how the state of Oregon allows people to die with dignity by allowing them the option of taking prescribed medication that brings on that endless sleep.  What Kevorkian was doing, except the person does it themselves as opposed to a doctor administering the medication.  It was eye opening in the sense I never that imagined that I would ever be stopped should I choose to end my own my life 30, 40 years from now. 

One of the people the documentary follows is a woman from Washington whose husband succumbed to his disease within a year and suffered to his last breath.  As a promise to her husband she began a journey to make the right to die with dignity legal in her state.  With the help of an organization already on that same path they were able to pass the law. 

As I watched I kept thinking that it was wrong that a person, of sound mind and body would not be allowed to make that choice for themselves.  It still doesn’t make any sense really.  I’ve never been opposed to what many consider “assisted suicide” but I think there are probably too many people just like me who aren’t aware of how devastating a terminal illness can be and it takes a movie to help open their eyes to why a law like this is necessary.  Not that I am going to run out right now and start protesting, I’d like to see the stupid mutherfucker who will try and get in my way when my time comes.  But with everything else I have to worry about when it comes to getting older do I really need to add this to the list of things.