July 5, 2006
HURRY, BEFORE THE DEPRESSION PASSES (via Kevin Whited):
A friend wanted to die, so I helped him do it his way: Once full of life, Mel sought to escape being diminished by the cancer that was killing him (ANNE LAMOTT, 6/30/06, Houston Chronicle)
THE man I killed did not want to die, but he no longer felt he had a choice. [...]Mel and Joanne (that's what I'm going to call them) told me about it one night over dinner.
Their grown kids wanted him to do chemo, but aggressive treatment might buy him six months, or maybe not, and he had decided against it. He wanted to feel as well as he could for as long as he could, savor family and friends and the beauty of life, on his own terms, in the strange basket of sickness. And if the fear and suffering got too great? Well, they'd deal with that then.
That night was the closest I came to drinking in all the years I'd been sober, but somehow I didn't. I believed that God would be close to us all no matter how things shook down, even though Mel was not a believer. The next three months were a mosaic of beauty, love and his body breaking down. He could no longer hike, and he wasn't hungry. He was depressed...
It's an odd sort of god who's closest when you prey on the weak.
Posted by Orrin Judd at July 5, 2006 12:00 AM
Unless a person is strapped down or a quadriplegic, anyone who claims they are unable to off themselves with out help is a cowardly liar and lazy, too.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at July 5, 2006 10:57 AMNot odd, OJ, people have spoken of Satan since the beginning. He's an old, old friend of the weak and the scared. Mr. Ortega, people like to spread their misery and sins. If you are going to Hell, why not bring a friend along?
Posted by: Robert Mitchell Jr. at July 5, 2006 11:34 AM