Life, Death, And The Whole Damned Thing

It's an empty kind of morning this morning. It's not that things aren't happening; they are. A caregiver is here this morning; we've done my stretches and she is cleaning my apartment right now. I've had a couple of calls already. Plus I have ribs in the slow cooker for the wine making party tonight. I say it is empty because I am almost neutral in how I feel emotionally and physically. I don't feel bad, I don't feel good. I feel... bland.

My daughter recently commented that everything in my blog was dramatic. I wonder about that. This post, for instance, seems to completely lack drama of any sort. On the other hand, there are a fair number of things that happen in my life which give me pause, make me wonder, cause me grief. I don't know that writing about them is dramatic, so much as it is an expression of the emotional impact so many things have on me. The more I struggle with my limitations, the greater the impact of almost every daily event is on me.

Yesterday, for example, was in fact a dramatic day for me, so much so that by the afternoon, when I picked up Catherine to go shopping for wine supplies, I was pretty much on the edge of tears. It wasn't the early start or rush to get dressed for a TV crew that had this dramatic impact on my emotions; it was the act of discussing death, my plans for my own death, which really had an impact on me. This is not an easy subject. I guess this post now has some drama in it.

The real fact for this morning is that the emotional effort of yesterday still has me kind of worn out. Some subjects just take it out of me. Discussing my illness and my plans for ending my own life are not what I would call easy topics. The talk is tiring. It left me emotionally, and even physically, off balance for the remainder of my day. I suspect that today is a counter-balance to that effort.

The headlines are still full of opinion on the Supreme Court of Canada decision to open the door to physician assisted suicide. There are all kinds of opinion, ranging from the fearful, slippery slope to the religious objection. In the end, none of them are sustainable when viewed from one simple reality. It is easy for someone else to bear my pain and suffering; they don't feel it. Put them in my place, let them feel what I feel, then ask them the same question.

Our religions, based as they are in ancient cultures and beliefs, have no framework for reconciling the power of medicine these days. They have no tools for seeing what modern science can do, nor do they have answers for modern medical ethical questions. If I were treated with the medical methods of our ancient forefathers, I would be dead already. There would be no question about taking my own life; that question would have been answered in the natural course of life in antiquity. My death would have been attributed to the will of God, my illness attributed to my sins. There was no method for understanding, or for treating, or for maintaining life.

All of this thinking, and feeling, and contemplating is making me tired. I am going to die. There is nothing dramatic about that statement; it is as normal a part of life as being born. Certainly it is an exciting transition but it is no more dramatic, in the scheme of our complete biosphere, than any other birth or death. Let's just leave it at that.