To die with dignity ...

THIS is my greatest challenge. How do I make changes to support these kinds of directives? Working in aging adult care, my heart breaks, not only for those who are lonely, depressed and aged, but for those who are forward thinking and know, in right mind, how they want to end their life! This article may be written from the USA but don't fool yourself this happens right here in Canada. Every time I spoon feed a person I wonder, is this what they would have wanted for themselves. Being pro-euthanasia for aging and infirm adults who choose it in their earlier advance directives, how (oh please tell me how) can I advocate for this action to be respected and held up in a court of law or with family wanting to hold on?

Just this week, a woman sat with me and would not eat. She is choosing not to eat. Other caregivers say "encourage her to eat" and I do. She looks at me with deep, deep longing in her eyes and says, "you eat it then". I laugh. She takes a drink of Ensure (gut rot IMO) and smiles and then slowly spits it down her apron. She laughs and says, "awful stuff". She knows, SHE KNOWS what she is doing. Why, oh why, can we not choose to die without others telling us somehow it is wrong?

Choosing life is fantastic when life is worth choosing. When it is not it is a prison and torture to the one wishing to move on from this earthly existence.

"Nora Harris, 64, a former librarian, signed an advance directive after her diagnosis to prevent her life from being prolonged when her disease got worse. Now, her husband said, she’s being kept alive with assisted eating and drinking against her stated wishes." http://www.nextavenue.org/advance-directive-denied-last-wish/?utm_source=sumome&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=sumome_share

My father said, two weeks or so before he died, at the wake of my uncle "he's the lucky one" referring to my uncle laying in the casket. There are worse things than death and until you work with the dead and dying in an aging adult care home, do not judge someone for wanting to die. Dying with dignity should be an option instead of the shame of suicide that is placed upon one who choose to die as they age. Let's talk about dying with dignity more and more and more until we all understand what it is to have choices in life and in death!

Psalm 23:5 "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows."   You being the spiritual being we are in our hearts.  As our own spirit prepares a table to sit at during our lifetime, there is the presence of enemies prying into our life, dictating and tellings the spirit what it is it should do.  Let the self/spirit/soul anoint your head with oil and let your cup overflow with self desire and authentic voice.  Speak your authentic truth about your own life, make it known what the spirit wants.

Namaste.