Ending our lives

Thanks for the link Mike. A sad story indeed. I wonder if our laws would allow that, or force the couple to wait longer. I don't know if pain is an acceptable reason, but if not, it should be.

Yobarr, my mother was on the other end of that geriatric hospital life, due to Alzheimers. My father was quite capable and they tried moving to a retirement village where he could get help and respite. Unfortunately, the move made her worse and she became uncontrollable, so she had to be moved to the attached nursing home. I remember visiting there and regularly getting a very wet kiss from her, as she believed I was her husband. If I went out of the room and came back, my previous presence would not be remembered, and I would get another kiss. A year later and even that stopped. I think it was about 6 years from realising that something was definitely wrong to her passing away.

At that point my father was hating the retirement village and I am sure he would have chosen the path to end his life had that been available then.

A year or so ago, a friend from school who I later chose as my best man, passed away (assisted) after a long illness with motor neuron disease. He had been wheelchair bound for about 8 years and unable to speak coherently for the last 5 years, but with no loss of mental acuity. He was still able to communicate via an iPad with pointer in his mouth. That was extremely tedious, sometimes taking a minute or two for each letter as it got worse. For the last two years he did not even have that.

He wanted to end his life and had written his wishes while he was still capable, but approval was not granted for a long time. By that time he needed assisted breathing and his eyes were all he had left that he could control. So, blinking was all he could do to confirm to the doctors that he was ready to die. His wife was a legend, looking after him at home all that time.

This thread has prompted me that I should make plans. The thought of having a stroke or accident and wasting away with brain still functioning but unable to communicate is appalling, let alone the impact on family.

P.S. I did add the word "The"

.>yet that seems to conflict with the concept that all you need to do is beg forgiveness and all will be OK.

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I feel the need to add clarification to the above statement, as I so often do when devine forgiveness is discussed :)

I was raised a Catholic. for which I am grateful, but rejected the whole concept of religion as a young man. Catholicism embraces the concept of confession as a fundamental aspect of the faith but we were taught, in no uncertain terms, that one needs to be truely repentant of the sins for which one is asking forgiveness. There is no easy road because, as one would expect with an omnipotent god, such a being is not easily fooled.

It seems to me confession is one of the really positive aspects of catholicism for it provides an avenue to people who have done wrong ("Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.") to find peace in their soul (mind?) but *only* if their repentance is true and that is something every individual knows in his heart.

Religion has been the cause of much bad but it has also produced much good and is a powerful and necessary psychological support to many. It is sometimes said that it is not religion which is the problem but rather the church organisation (of all faiths) which man creates and I have some sympathy with that view.

A lovely quote I heard Cat Stevens utter "I discovered Islam before I discovered Moslems." :)

It's a very short utterance....