The courage to end life

[Chris James]

We often post such varied things in the forums and this is the most emotional thing I have read all year:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-last-day-of-her-life/ar-BBjLJFE?ocid=LENDHP

Would I have the courage, could end my life? I don't think anyone can answer that question when they are healthy and alert. I am an atheist, there is no afterlife for me, it doesn't exist. But those of us who believe this cling to life and wring every moment of pleasure out of it, Sandy did much the same.

I don't see it as cowardly to end life like she did, just the ultimate desire to choose the time and place of demise. Her life had meaning, she did good things and will be remembered for them. Go softly into the night, dear lady.

[dude]

That was moving.

[Merkin]

This is an extraordinarily moving and important account. If it is at all important to anyone that they be able to grasp control of their own destiny, surely how that journey is to end should be equally under one’s own control. An Advance Medical Directive can only go so far in assuring that one’s final wishes will be carried out, and all too often we hear of family members who, with the best of intentions, wrest control away from the individual and condemn him to prolonged suffering or some sort of vegetative state.

Here is a wonderful contrary example of a woman who has thought it through well in advance, and who consequently has been able to choose an ending for her own story that completes her narrative in a way that pleases its own author. She deserves applause and acclaim, as do those who supported her in arriving so gracefully at her final chapter.