Medical marvels can prolong life way beyond benefit, at however great a financial and emotional toll. Public debate focused on issues of God s will, economics, choice, familial love, and potentially familial avarice. There was, I reluctantly concluded, too close of an unprotected connection between the choice to die and the obligation to die. I voted against the measure, though I was somewhat sorry to see it fail. Over my two years as a crisis counselor I abhorred suicide, that insidious assassin lurking within desperate telephone calls from suicidals seeking always a reason for life.
Life wants so to go on living.
I avoid using the word suicide. The very sound is an emotional contagion spreading the viral concept that suicide is a valid means to cope with pain. We all have our pain. I watched as the near-angelic nurses cared for him. Changing his soiled clothes and bedding, treating his failing skin, gently working around his suffering.