Not Quite Right...

This first bit is a warning. I mean, most of you already know most of what I'm about to write about but maybe have only gotten it in pieces so it hasn't been jarring. I know that I feel differently than most people do. I know that what I think about these things could be considered really offensive to some people. But it's what I think, what I feel, and it's my blog. 

Also consider this your trigger warning as I'm about to write about death and disease and ending your own life on your own terms. 

(though there are a lot of interesting studies coming out now that seem to show trigger warnings, instead of being helpful, have actually been harmful, which as you all know I am not a huge fan of them so these studies reinforce my own biases against them)

I do not understand the fairness in life or I guess the lack of fairness in life. It's a big part of why I cannot wrap my brain around religion anymore. If there was an omnipotent being out there who filled a parental role (Our Father who art in Heaven and all that jazz) then someone should really call CPS on them. 

It's all too arbitrary. Who lives. Who dies. Who gets sick. Who stays healthy. I mean sometimes you can see it, the lead singer for a musical group died this past week from liver failure. Anyone who watched the trajectory of his life could see that was a definite possibility. But even that, I mean, I know a few alcoholics who have been drinking excessively for decades and they are fine. So why does one person get liver failure and another doesn't? It's arbitrary.

I just donated to a friend's fundraiser for St. Judes and their continuing mission to help kids with cancer. Kids with cancer. That's another thing I would bring up with any god I happened to come face to face with. I mean, what the actual fuck? Why would I ever believe in a deity that gives cancer to kids and calls it a moment of faith for you to accept there are "reasons" for that. 

Then there are the times that are like my whole why can't we direct the weather moments. Like if it's flooding in one part of the world and drought in another why haven't we figured out yet how to move the weather where it's needed? 

Why are some people doing everything in their power and in the medical establishments power to stay alive while other people are done and ready to die? Why isn't there more balance? Why is it so arbitrary? 

As you all know, my mother decided to die. Her religious views, and the rest of my family all practice except me, would never allow for suicide. Suicide is a sin. But stopping eating and drinking? Well that's a gray zone. So instead of going out quickly and painlessly she suffered along for a few weeks as her body shut down. I also fully believe if she hadn't had the pressure of her religion and society saying you shouldn't, she would have chosen to die a few years earlier than she did. When her health really started to fail, after Dad had died, when her sister died, when her best friend started to show signs of dementia, I think those things all sapped her will to live, but she didn't really feel she had the choice to stop. Until the very end when she decided she was just too tired to keep going and was done. 

I have had a few other people in my life lose their lives to depression. The disease kills just as much as cancer or heart attacks but we just only recently started talking about it that way. That it's the disease that kills you. And generally it's a messy death. Because we don't allow people to choose to go out on their own terms. There isn't a clean, painless way to go. There isn't even a process for sitting down with your family and saying goodbye. Can you imagine how much better that would be? If we had a process? 

Not just for people who suffer from depression, because I know that particular disease would make even the thought of sitting with your family and explaining what you were going to do seem overwhelming, but in all choices. 

I have another friend who has always been really clear that he will eventually end his own life. When he first told me he did the caveat of "Not tonight, don't stay up all night worrying that you didn't do enough" but eventually he will. He's very matter of fact about it. He's not a sufferer of depression. He just feels like there is a point in a life where it's enough and when he reaches that point he will end his. 

The first time we talked about it, years ago, it really bothered me. Because that's not how it's supposed to work. People who kill themselves either do it by accident (Overdosing), from depression, or if you happen to live in the right place you can get a medically assisted death with dignity choice for terminal illness. But to just decide that you will someday make that choice? What? I've come around to his point of view. It's not the choice I would make for myself. Not as a healthy capable adult. But for him? It brings him comfort to know it's his choice. 

But he's the exception. Not just the decision he made, but that he shared with anyone. We don't allow for that in our society. The choice. 

But imagine how much better off we would be if we did. If it was totally normal to be able to sit down with those who are closest to you and say, "I am choosing to die." Imagine if that were normal. If the person was suffering from depression you could see if there was a different path that could be taken. Get them help to rebalance brain chemistry if that's what they needed. Instead of your first sign that they were suffering that greatly was their death. 

And if they were just ready to die, if there was an easier way to go than a shotgun or a rope or a hastily concocted overdose, how much better would that be? To say your goodbyes, to let people know that it wasn't anything they did, to surround yourself with your loved ones, or to not, and to drift away peacefully. No nasty surprises for the people you leave behind. No what could I have done differently remorse.

If we just could talk about death a little more freely. 

Or if the universe wasn't so arbitrary. 

I've had friends die from a variety of diseases that they did every single treatment available to cure. They were not ready to go. They did not want to die. Not at all. They did everything they could possibly do to prevent it and yet...

Why doesn't the universe give the people who are ready to die the terminal diseases and the ones who are not ready stay healthy? I mean, if you were running the place and somehow disease had to be a part of it (because face it, if I were running the show I wouldn't see a reason for disease) but if you had to have it as a part, then why not give the people who are ready to be done with this world the diseases instead of the ones who are still digging this life?

It's unfair. 

I hate when things are unfair. 

Why can't we direct the weather where it's needed?
Why can't death come for those that are ready for it instead of those that aren't?

Why don't we talk about death a little more freely and openly?

I'm planning on living to be 100. It's a nice round number and it makes me happy to think of it. But if my health fails, or my mind starts to slip I would like the choice to go out on my own terms. Gently. Easily. With full honesty to my family and friends. With dignity. 

Life is not fair and I really hate that.