Posted on 12/15/2011 3:58:50 PM PST by wagglebee
Exactly, dignity comes from God, it has NOTHING to do with how we look when we die.
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I can speak from experience. Having led a very healthy, active, sporting, woodsman, life, then contracting severe bone cancer two years ago requiring major/readical surgery to survive. Three major surgeries, 3 mmonths in the hospital at MD Anderson in Houston, 3 more months of very intensive rehab to teach me to walk again.
I am now disabled and can hobble around, but will never run, jump, climb, etc. again, and my bowel and bladder functions are severely constrained requiring a very strict diet and very attentive monitoring to be able to even accomplish those basic functions.
Hundreds and hundreds (many right here on FR) prayed and followed my experience and stoory.
Prayers were answered...many hearts were touched.
I have now seen two more grandkids boorn, a son return from a foreign mission for our church, a daughter preparing to get married (our other two daughters and one other son already are married), and have been able to enjoy my grandkids so much.
Would I be better off dead? That’s God’s decision...not mine. I need to be a tool in His hand and help others, and witness to others...which is what I am doing now.
The inclination to allow assisted suicide and somehow say its okay for folks to just die is not an inclination or thought that comes from God. He is perfectly capable of taking us when our time comes in innumerable ways.
He wants us to have faith, to come to Him and His Son, and then to bear witness of Him in all circumstance and use our free will to live as long as we can and help others.
I know this to be true.
My Sacral Chordoma
http://www.jeffhead.com/chordoma.htm
God bless you and your family and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas.
Good stuff!
My father is an esophageal cancer survivor with similar challenges.(Plus he is unable to lay flat, which compromises not only his sleep but any medical care as well). My girls were babies when he was diagnosed, and now they are on the brink of adulthood (18 next month), extremely grateful to have their Grandpa in their lives.
The disability is something I have, it is not something I am.
Over the decades (I am 65)I have had to deal with some very ignorant people and had the pleasure of knowing some very marvelous people - just like everyone else.
As a child growing up in the 1950s my parents taught me to become as self-sufficient as possible. If something doesn't work for me in the “normal” way I had to find another way to accomplish it. Learning to tie my own shoes was a toughie, but I did it.
I learned early to dwell on what I could do rather than on what I couldn't. I accepted early on that I would never be much of a pianist or learn to juggle, but I did learn to fly airplanes (single engine and sailplanes), drive cars in off-road rally competition, and be a pretty speedy one-handed typist.
I never let the disability I have decide for me how I was going to live my life. If I wanted to try something I found a way to do it. In college I discovered the theater. Forty years later I can point to a long list of credits in theater, films, more nightclubs than I care to think about and commercial voiceovers. I've written novels, plays, jokes for comedians and even a textbook used to teach traffic safety.
When I see stories about euthenasia of the disabled it makes my skin crawl because I know that they are talking about me.
If these people get their way in this world and “get rid” of those with disabilities then all of humanity will become a race of cripples.
“...is not an inclination or thought that comes from God.”
Just today I was watching a homeless guy with a heavy pack and a cane slowing making his rounds of the dumpsters. I thought to myself what keeps that guy going? If it were me - I’d probably blow my head off.
Hopefully I would remember your sentiments above though. The kids and I were watching that zombie show on T.V., and the discussion of suicide came up - and they all thought they would kill themselves rather than to try to survive in a zombie infested place.
I explained to them that life always has its difficulties, and sometimes there seems like no hope, but there always is. And you fight for it and struggle for it. (”But dad - these are ZOMBIES!”)
Glad to see that you made it through all of your treatments so far from your home.
Hi, wagglebee and hello, Jeff Head. It’s great that Jeff’s back.
And me. And especially my husband. Of course, it made my skin crawl before we joined this elite group of "defectives," because even if it wasn't us, it was still real people they were threatening. If I can see that, why can't the euthanasists see it? I think their inability to see disabled people as real human beings makes them the true defectives. Oh, the irony!
I’m happy to see you here, sharing the good news of God’s blessings. I hope he continues to bless you.
From conception to natural death — let us live our lives.
Pro-life bump, back at you!
Here’s another side......
My MIL, a serious student of English History and literature, and former bank president, is now little more than a child in her dotage. Witnessing the agony of her daughters trying to cope with her declining mental/physical state is trying, to say the least !
How do you comfort a wife whose mother is little more than an infant ? A mother whose greatest pride was her mind, ( and her greatest fear was its loss) ?
And I’m facing the same issues myself, it seems !
So who “determines dignity” ? For my MIL, it seems it devolves upon her daughters. I can only be supportive. In my case, I’ve already made certain determinations based upon defined presenting conditions.
At some point we all must ask ourselves how much moral/ethical/legal burden are we willing to place upon our wives/husbands/children in these “end of life” decisions ?
>PS
Are you suggesting that the solution is to kill her?
My own mother is in a home now, near us. She has severe dimensia and is 86 years old.
She can remember very little and is slowly forgetting even how to eat.
We love her, we visit her often. Generally she is happy.
I am thanksful she is still here and my kids and grandkids can go with me to visit her and I can tell them stories and show them pictures of how she used to be.
The timing, IMHO, of end of life (though we all must make decisions and arrangements regarding it) is and should be in God’s hands.
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