Posted on 10/13/2005 11:37:42 AM PDT by madprof98
Mom first confessed to me that she wanted to die almost 14 months before she killed herself on April 28, 2004.
"I just want to go," she yelled on her 82nd birthday, tears welling up. Her heart had given out physically from advanced arteriosclerosis, and emotionally since Daddy died.
She had lived with us since a massive heart attack left her an invalid with no hope of recovery. She no longer had the strength to socialize, go shopping or attend Mass.
I did everything they tell you to do for a suicidal person. Mom had a heaven-sent primary doctor in Alpharetta who started monitoring a course of antidepressants for her. He treated her soul as well as her body. We brought in a daily caregiver.
Most important, we talked. I said I understood her feelings, but that it would upset me if she tried something on her own without talking to me first.
Mom was so relieved that she could tell me the truth of how she felt. She promised not to take matters into her own hands.
By January 2004, Mom's lungs had deteriorated. As with many women her age, she started smoking in her teens. She quit before turning 50. We always hoped that 30 years of abstinence would undo all the damage, but it was not to be.
By February, Mom suddenly announced that she had stopped taking all of her medicines and would no longer go to any doctor. "I just want to go," she kept saying.
By March, Mom was going blind. Her heart was not strong enough to permit surgery on her cataracts, so her remaining pleasures of reading and watching TV were going away. On her 83rd birthday, she again burst into tears. "I just want to go!" she raged.
By April 28, Mom's rage had boiled over. Late that afternoon, I found her surrounded by all those medicine bottles untouched since February. They were empty.
"I just want to go," she slurred. She kept shaking her head from side to side. "Just let me go, please don't call 911!"
I considered not calling. I just wanted to make my Mom happy again.
Months later, my physician told me that if I hadn't called, I might have been arrested.
A few hours after arriving at the emergency room, Mom died from a combination of the overdose and her advanced arteriosclerosis.
Unfortunately, my experience is that doing all the right things couldn't stop my 83-year-old Catholic mother from following through on a threat she made consistently for almost 14 months.
While she was still conscious, I asked her why she didn't keep her promise to tell me before she tried something like this. She replied, "I was afraid you would be arrested."
Exactly what kind of family values prevent a mother and daughter from talking openly about the end of life for fear of prosecution?
I pray you never have to walk in my shoes to find out.
Nora DePalma lives in Cumming.
None of them do. Nor do any laws at all, either on the books or proposed. So why is this thing the feature on today's editorial page in the Atlanta paper? Because the Culture-of-Death crowd is beginning a big new push for legalized euthanasia. (To make sure we get the point, we are reminded more than once that Mom is Catholic.)
The culture of death crowd wants a totally blurred line here and the future of such a lack of distinction is hiddeous. To the point that now in Europe people will die AGAINST their will because they suffer lack of a "quality" life.
The question these lack of ethics people refuse to even ask is where it will go.
By abstaining from her medicine she sure made those last few months more miserable for herself.
Hey, that was supposed to be subtle - no fair pointing it out!
Just as well. Apparently they were teaching her nothing at the Mass she attended.
Emotionalist propaganda is absolutely sickening.
Let's watch that clip of Al Gore crying about tobacco again.
God bless you.
What a terrible story. I'm thinking of the apparent euthanasia that occurred in the New Orleans hospital. They thought they were being merciful too, and if the accounts I've read are accurate they told each patient that they were "giving them something to make them feel better." 20 patients died in one night, and probably none of them knew that what they were taking would kill them.
It's a small leap from allowing deliberate suicide by an individual to deciding that very sick people "wouldn't want to live." Both are wrong in my view.
And the whole Catholic angle was about as subtle as a Rhinocerous horn up the backside. Libs have no shame.
And then we move on to some who aren't very sick at all . . .
Great..just what I'd want...my kid forcing me to do something I don't want to do.
We ain't there yet. I can't imagine what a person in that 82yr old's shoes was feeling.
But I do know that I don't want to have something contrary to my desires imposed on me by anyone who thinks they know best.
This particular case is not a "culture of death" crowd thing. Its a person deciding to go. The idea that life HAS to be prolonged simply because it can is relatively new: 50yrs ago this lady's condition would have already killed her. Now those medicines are prolonging her agony: she's not well, isn't going to get well but she will be alive.
Gotta go with the 82yr old on this one and feel sorry for the daughter.
Exactly.
You are sacrificing your mind and heart and strength to honor your father and mother, and your Father in heaven will reward you. Many talk of love, but you are doing it.
The culture of death strikes again. Here we have a person in failing health who is obviously depressed and can only understand the world in terms of what she can no longer do. So what does her daughter propose? A society that will reinforce the idea of weak and helpless people being worth nothing. What she and her daughter should have tried to understand is that maybe that mom was supposed to be helpless and in need of care to give her daughter the opportunity to care for her and to grow in Christ. Suffering is the message of the cross.
That is the essence of the culture of death - that life is something that can be disposed of by a human whim.
So it would have been best for the daughter to dig out the family rifle and put mama out of her misery? If you think not, then what could conceivably be the POINT of this piece?
Cafeteria scum like the author of this article are the most vile and shameless malcontents infesting the earth.
It's a whole lot easier than caring for others, isn't it?
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