Assisted Suicide
I read about the famous economist Daniel Kahneman, author of 'Thinking fast and slow', opting to end his life through assisted suicide, euthanasia. He went to Switzerland, and died.
A friend and I were talking about it. And I remembered what Tanu and I have often discussed -
Not to live if we become a permanent burden on someone.
I told my friend, I was quite clear - I get to decide when I will end my life. But he asked a simple question - is your life only yours?
And it made me pause. And as is my wont, I started writing to clear my head. First I wrote from the perspective of the one who has decided to end his life, and followed it with the feelings of the one who is left behind.
And it wasn't an easy decision any longer.
It's easy to say that our breath, our life, is a gift to us - and after that it's our decision as to what we want to do with it. But that also started sounding glib.
Because the fact is that our breath, our life, is also a collective. We are made of the efforts, the hope springs, the heart carvings, the soul bindings, the body cravings, the thought mouldings of all who love and care for us. We start being someone and then are slowly changed and created out of what others see us as. What might start as an opinion, an illusion, starts getting recreated. We then are what we make of ourselves, but are also deeply vented and grooved by what our world thinks of us.
No, we no longer remain our own.
If our presence makes a difference to the lives of someone else, we are not only our own. If our mere breath gives solace to someone else, we are not our own. If mere presence, without words, without effort, makes someone's life feel complete, then our life is not merely ours.
And that, if nothing else, needs to give us pause, before we decide to go to the next realm.
The Poem -
He went to a cold place
to befriend death.
He said the burdens of life
were outweighing its benefits,
so he broke life
into a cost-benefit analysis.
He said "I am not rational;
.
I am
inconsistent,
emotional,
easily fooled -
mostly by myself.
Basically
I am simply human
and I choose
to no longer be
of this earth."
.
And I asked him if
his life was only his,
and what of
my touch, his touch to me,
his smile,
the arc of his back,
as I sit beside him,
the memory of our shared air,
the space melding our beings,
the way he holds my hand
the way we read our grief.
.
He smiled and said yes -
we know addresseses of our wounds
though
pain separates us,
as there are bridges we perforce
need to cross alone -
the way we have love binding us,
but the way we break ourselves free.
And my time has now come
so just
let me go.
Hear the poem, with a gorgeous background score by Sascha Ende -
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