Tuesday, November 5, 2013

The right to a peaceful death

This is a first draft of something I will come back to and edit as regularly as I can. I hope.
Uncle D and Ma, I'm sure you don't mind this. But if you do, let me know and I'll take it down. Love you both.

There is no easy way to put this.

Three years ago, when I was 18, my Uncle and I were placing bright colored tape on all of the appliances in my Grandma’s house: the right setting on the washer and dryer, which button would start the microwave, where to set the oven. This was exactly when I knew that the right to death, or the possibility of euthanasia, assisted-suicide, whatever you want to call it, should exist.

My grandmother, Mary, passed away in the first half of 2013, and that was the happiest moment of the last several years of her life.