Idiosycratic Life

This entry is gonna be a little dark….

A lot of elderly people in my family are not doing well. Nanny is okay, although she is having a lot of problems with osteoporosis, but Aunt Mamie and my mom’s dad are in very poor health. Also, Aunt Bev, the Plot-Ners’ great-aunt (whom I have known since I was 5, and always spends the holidays with us,) has had a lot of emergency surgery this week, and she isn’t faring well either. I am especially sad about Aunt Bev. Having never had children of her own, she is like a second mom to Mrs. Plot-Ner, my second mom. Aunt Bev bought Kr!sten her wedding dress, and it’s inconceivable to me that she may not get to see her in it on her wedding day this coming October. Sigh…

This past New Years’ Day, in Miami, the Merald did a story about an elderly couplewho committed suicide on New Year’s Eve. They did not have any children or surviving relatives, and most of their friends had already passed away. Neither was healthy, and they did not want to suffer or watch the other suffer, nor did they want to be separated. So, apparently they put their affairs in order, left a note with their final wishes, and jumped, hand-in-hand, off the roof of their condominium building at midnight.

At the time, I was absolutely horrified. But now? After watching my loved ones making decisions about life support and morphine and so on- this one phrase keeps running through my thoughts: “Let it be peaceful. If not peaceful, then swift; if not swift, then painless.”