In any event, there’s as much reason to fear being judged by Minos, the Judge of Tartarus, or by the Norns, or having one’s heart weighed by Anubis as there is of gettin’ dissed by the J-man.
He who wilfully disobeys the rules is certainly sinning.
Now go read the forum descriptions.
And consider something ironic – there is not a Doper who is not firmly convinced that Eve was indeed made of male body parts, just as Scripture says, and beyond this board only fundamentalists are inclined to believe! 
At worst, it may lead to severe eyestrain and overuse of :rolleyes:
But I’ll indulge for a moment. If your God is so powerful and omnipotent, then how am I going to be able to kill myself against His will anyway? People survive seemingly unsurvivable accidents everyday, and theists write it up to God’s intervention. If God wants Eve to live, He can certainly make Eve’s sister trip on her way to the bed with the pillow and not succeed in suffocating Eve.
I have the same question about birth control being immoral, by the way. If God “wants you” to be pregnant, no amount of contraception’s going to work (sez the girl who got pregnant while using multiple forms of protection). Heck, look what happened to poor Mary - even abstinence didn’t work for her!
I believe in the Divine. I also believe It gave us gifts in the form of medicinal plants, chemicals and intelligence, so that we can better live our lives in health and die with a minimum of pain.
I just snorted Diet Coke at that image.
What if…
(I hate to throw a monkey wrench in the little death fest y’all are having here, but I will.)
What if it turns out that what truly keeps you young and vital, lively, vibrant and immune from the effects of aging is an attitude.
What if what keeps you young is the ability to look forward to the next stage of your life, whatever age, with the same keeness of a 13 yr old looking to be 16. Or an 8 yr old itching to be 10. An 18 yr old anticipating, with real savour being, 21.
If you truly believe that every age has lessons and challenges, blessings and rewards then shouldn’t you be looking forward to the next stage of your life with youthful anticipation and glee?
It’s only a tiny little shift in attitude for those already young at heart. For those who already embrace all of who they are - including their age. But I’m here to tell you it makes a big difference.
When you perpetuate a youth worshipping attitude you are attempting to embrace something which cannot be, no one escapes aging. But when you look forward to whatever lies ahead with youthful anticipation of the new and exciting you are embracing what must be. What if that change it attitude makes all the difference?
But I’m sorry for the interuption, we now return you to
Deathfest 2005…
If your post was directed to the OP, then I’m guessing you’re going to miss the target. By a lot.
. . . Say, are you tryin’ to rib me?
Never spent much time in a nursing home or assisted-living facility, have you?
I love it when people tell Eve to just be chipper and everything will be ok.
Is it against the current rules or did it just become unfashionable to set up lawn chairs and wait for the fireworks?
Damn Simulpost! <shakes impotent fists at the hamsters>
Well, actually,
I have been the primary caregiver to my fully bedridden and incontinent mother-in-law for over four years. I have been in every nursing home in this city. She spent 3months in such a place while we found and bought this house. I know more about the horrors of nursing homes and the elders left in them than most, I assure you.
I have seen things that I don’t even speak about they are so horrific. Things I can’t speak about because I can’t change them and raging won’t help. This was a very hard learned lesson for me.
Believe it or not, I do know just a little about what I speak.
You know what I hate? Well meaning people who come into our home, visit with MIL, settle into the livingroom and some casual conversation, only to come out with, {usually in loud pear shaped tones}, “If I ever end up like that - put a bullet in my head, please.” I know it’s uncomfortable for them to have to address their own mortality issues and everything, but still. My own brother said this to me.
Now I wouldn’t wish what has happened to her on anyone. She has lost all of her independence, she is usually uncomfortable, and she suffers every day. But her life has value, and there are times when she laughs still, she still says things that move me, I learn from her still. And in caring for her I learn about myself, things I could not have otherwise learned.
And if she couldn’t speak another word there are still things I could learn from her. Don’t misunderstand me, I won’t let anyone put tubes into her or even take back into a hospital, but we don’t get to say when we are born and we don’t get to say when we die. That’s how life is.
I believe that until you are 90 and losing mobility and control over so much in life you cannot possibly know what it’s really like. I often wonder if my mother in law is alive still because she has an extensive internal life not manifest externally. Is she really out of it when she appears that way? How do we really know that she isn’t experiencing the most perfect clarity of thought that she has ever experienced. How do we know she isn’t making herself right with life as she’s lived it, something that could take longer or shorter depending on the person. Who among us wants to be rushed to the pearly gates and robbed of the contemplative clarity only available to those allowed to die in their own time.
My point is that we only have our lives to compare to theirs. It’s not a fair comparison.
Maybe it’s the Buddhist in me, but I truly believe that all life has value.
Maybe it’s the atheist in me, but, “If I ever end up like that - put a bullet in my head, please.”
I feel like this too, but then I look at my grandparents. Grandma Jones’s 88. Grandpa Jones died a year and a half ago at the same age. After about age 70 or so…
They couldn’t eat anything but bland food or it made them sick.
They couldn’t drink because it would interfere with the medications that keep/kept them alive.
Smoking would kill (would have killed) them for sure–breathing troubles like congestive heart failure and asthma.
Grandma loved to read, but then she had a few strokes awhile back, and it messed up her eyes. Now she can’t see well enough to read anything.
Run? They have/had those chairs that lift them up because they can’t even rise to a standing position unassisted.
Fucking? I never asked Gramps, but statistically speaking, by age 88, most guys can’t get it up. Viagra would kill a lot of oldsters with heart conditions. Besides, Grandpa didn’t even have the physical ability to wipe his own ass for the last 5 years.
Grandpa lived 15 years with arteriosclerosis, prostate cancer, heart failure, and asthma. Grandma has had multiple strokes, is nearly blind, recurrent breast cancer, and a heart problem that was supposed to have killed her 10 years ago. They are/were in constant pain. When we visited, all they could do was talk about wanting to die.
My aunt couldn’t let go, and every time Grandpa had a crisis, she called 911 instead of letting him go peacefully.
Then, one night, Grandpa had chest pains and trouble breathing, and they made the decision not to call anyone–911, Auntie Means-Well, or even the nurse. He died in his bed, next to Grandma, which was what he’d been wanting for 10 years–ever since my grandparents became totally dependent on an in-home care nurse.
Grandpa has a brother, Merritt, who is 94. He still waterskis with his great-grandkids (against doctor’s orders). At the funeral, Great Uncle Merritt practically bounced around the room–he’s that vibrant. Unfortunately, his wife’s been wheelchair-bound for the last 10 years, his younger brothers are dead, and the rest of his peers are either sick or dead.
That’s dad’s side of the family, where longevity (most live to around 90) is a curse. On my mom’s side of the family, everyone just keels over dead between ages 65-75. They feel good and are active up until the day they pitch face-forward in their kitchen or their garden of a previously unknown heart condition.
Since I’m someone who likes to eat, drink, read, fuck, and everything else, and I never want to give it up, I’m hoping I take after Mom’s side of the family.
The day I feel like my quality of life isn’t up to snuff, I’m swallowing a whole bottle of my lithium pills.
Exactly like my family, only it’s the paternal side that keels over dead in their 70s, and the maternal side that lingers horribly in nursing homes till 90.
Lithium? I’m going for a fistful of valium, a cozy little chair next to the bathtub with some music playing, and a very sharp razor blade.
Right about the first, wrong about the second. We’ve all got the option to exit early if we so choose.
I think it’s great if your mother-in-law feels that her life is still worth living, despite all her physical problems. I think it’s great that you still appreciate her, too.
I don’t think anyone here is saying that “all old people should be put out of their misery.” I know I feel that choice should be respectfully left up to the old person in question.
Next to? Why not in the bathtub, where you can expire in soothing warm water, a la Petronius the Arbiter?
I’d like to have a farewell party, like the guy with AIDS in It’s My Party, who choisses to commit suicide when he learns he has an irreversible opportunistic brain disease that will render him a vegetable. He invites all his friends and family over for one last goodbye.
Bloody scenes give me the willies. I prefer the idea of just going to sleep. Plus, I figure it will be nicer for my younger sisters, who will undoubtedly be stuck with the “cleanup and disposal” aspect of my plan.
And ruin my red silk Gertie Lawrence lounging pyjamas? No, thank you, an arm dangling over the tub with the water running is much neater, and I’ll look good (if a bit pale) when they find me.
Back to the OP . . . My mother clings to life. As restricted as her life is, as much pain as she’s in, as hopeless as the future looks, she wants to be alive, and even has a “do resuscitate” order. So, following her wishes, I would not pull the plug on her. All I hope is “don’t let anything horrible happen to her before she dies”—no more strokes, no more broken bones. Sucks not having gods to pray to, sometimes.
Me? Bad hair day, broken nail—bring on the morphine!
I guess it’s an attitude I can’t understand. Sure, I’d rather be 20 than 90. Hell, I’d rather be 20 than 43 but it’s not going to happen. But just because I’m in worst shape now than I used to be, I’m not ready to kill myself. And when I get in worse shape than I am now I don’t see how my outlook is going to change. Whatever life you’ve got left is better than death. Death is having nothing.
Trust me- if all it took to keep from aging was having the right attitude, my grandmother had it in spades. If that were all it took, right now she’d be plotting her next trip to Timbuktu or Kalamazoo and the family would be happy for her. Begging her to consider making her next trip a trip to visit one of her sons, or encouraging her to invite one of her children or grandchildren on her next trip, but delighted for her that she had the spirit of adventure, the determination and the money to do whatever she wanted to do. At 75 she had that enthusiasm for life in spades.
Ack- hit submit reply too soon.
One day about ten years ago, my grandmother was by herself in some far-off country, when someone ran into her, and caused some brain damage that went undiagnosed for a while. Since then she’s had some ups and downs, and even done some more travelling. But somewhere along the line she lost something irreplaceable.
Yes, if you don’t keep trying to stretch your brain, you lose some of that brain power, and that contributes to miserable shells of people in assisted living and nursing homes. (I’ll even admit that it contributes to my grandmother’s present condition). But sometimes maintaining your health or enthusiasm is not a choice that you can make. I wish I thought it was.