This is edition one of my Sunday Musings.  Just a chance to reflect on things that were on my mind this week.

Yea another introspective reflection on life.  Sorry.  I’ll blog about Al Franken later.

So, last year seem to be a year of death in some respects.  A close friend lost his father, and I lost my grandmother.

It seems that the more I talk to people these days, the more this story seems to play out.  We get older, and around us, whether it be pets, family, friends or that beloved Hollywood actor, somewhere, someone we love leaves us.

In most cases, it is a cyclic age thing.  Each generation eventually buries the one before it.  My father remains healthy, but the odds are that I will someday attend his funeral, as he just did his mothers.  I can only hope he lives as long as she did.

I lost someone this weekend again, a pet.  When I launched my blog, my family and I had quite a large number of pet friends, about 19 or so.  Now we are down to 7. 

This weekend, for health reasons we adopted out our pet Cockatoo to a rescue facility to, we hope, allow him the chance to regain his full health and be a lot happier.  It was not an easy choice mind you.  But we made the decision for his own good, and our feelings had to be set aside.  We do many such things for loved ones, all in the name of “for their own good”, including ending lives.  For animals we make the decisions to have them put to sleep, a soft way of saying kill the animal.  For people, we terminate life support, also a nice way of saying watch them die.

This brings to mind the assisted suicide debate, where we allow a person to decide to terminate their not just their own medical care but their actual life when there is sufficient reason to believe there is no hope, pulling their own plug, as it were.

Also on the heels of that, my closest friend is facing a serious illness in her family, stage 4 cancer in her step father.  He faces a lousy road, as there is no realistic chance of treatment in his case.

All this jumbles in my head.  I can give up a pet, and I can have one put down.  I can recognize when people want to terminate their own care, or sign a DNR ((Do Not Resuscitate))  for their care when they have had enough.  My step mom had one signed when she died of cancer in 1999.  All of these things seem to make sense. 

So why doesn’t assisted suicide.  Oh.  Sorry, but I just cannot prettify it by calling it “death with dignity” when all it is in reality is physician assisted suicide.  Another soft label.

Anyway, to me, there is always hope even when there is no hope.  For example, my mother has lung cancer and was given 6-12 months to live…in 2003.  She apparently was not listening.

So were she to worsen, and her cancer advance, would I oppose her if she chose to end treatment?  Or to end her life?

Honestly…I do not know.

When it is my cat, I may chose to have it put out of it’s misery.  So don’t they make parallel arguments for equal standing?

Well, in my unique hypocrisy, no they don’t.  You see, I happen to regard people as a slightly different class of animal than cats, dogs and birds. 

But that is problematic too.  After all, what is the real difference between people and animals, but self awareness and determination?  And if that is so, then shouldn’t people being aware, and having the right to make their own choices, be allowed to make such choices?

But at the same time, choices and people have a bad habit of being bad.  People make irresponsible choices all the time.  I won’t turn this into an anti abortion screed, but no “choice” is more misused in my opinion

Sigh.

I have no clarity here, something I strive for.  In this area I remain muddled.  All the elements are fairly serious and when seen individually they appear clear, but when placed in context to that scary thing called life, they get murky and hard to discern?

As my friend deals with the health of her step dad, as my siblings and I deal with our mom and dad, and as my friends all deal with their aging parents and other family members, all I can do is hope that when the time comes I am able to find the strength to face the choices before me.

That’s all of the self indulgent wondering tonight.  See you next Sunday.

Trackposted to Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Adam’s Blog, DragonLady’s World, Nuke’s, , Political Byline, third world county, Allie is Wired, Woman Honor Thyself, The World According to Carl, Rosemary’s News and Ideas, The Pink Flamingo, A Newt One/ American Truth Warriors, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.