[Esther Ruth]

I've "run into this" with so many family members also. I am wondering what they have read or watched over the last 20 years (it seems) that has changed so many of their minds SO much, what has made them believe that given certain situations - they would be a burden, and that the best thing to do would be to end it all quickly.

I wonder if it is not this embrace of the idea that we never die really, but that our spirits go on to live in the trees, animals and all. People started reading about "native indians" and all their spiritism and all in the early 80's.

Native Indians worshiped the earth, trees etc instead of worshiping the God that created them. (Romans Chapter 1) Who in their right mind thinks that the Loving and wonderful G-D of this Universe would turn the people He loves so much into a tree or a horse? Only a Fool!

[theFIRMbss]

>I've "run into this" with so many family members also. I am wondering what they have read or watched over the last 20 years (it seems) that has changed so many of their minds SO much

My father passed on
a few months ago. Before
he died, he was ill

for three or four years.
I got to see in detail
how our medical

system treated him,
and other seniors I met
at his hospital.

It was terrible.
There are endless painful tests,
and throughout it all

people are treated
like machines -- opened up and
closed, parts removed, and

inside systems get
routed outside the body . . .
After a few years

of this, my father
had a long conversation
with his physician,

signed a DNR,
and also insisted no
"catastrophic care"

be used to save him.
I tried to reason with him,
but since I'd witnessed

the way today's care
kept people alive, I felt
torn with every word --

I wanted my dad
to live, but was grief-stricken
seeing him suffer.

I want to live, too,
but our medical system
reduces people

to meat machines, and
that amounts to chronic pain,
chronic medicine

and it amounts to
a daily life turned into
endless days of pain.

After seeing this
in dozens of seniors, I
know why they choose death --

They're not choosing death
per se, rather they're choosing
natural death, not

unnatural life.
The issue isn't clear cut
the way I once thought.