Barbaric or merciful?

Will you help me....

Die?


What a scary question...
Certainly not something one ever wants to hear.

A very taboo topic in polite company.

What do you do if your best friend poses this question to you?
What if it’s your brother? Your mom? Your son - that poses this question?

What it must take for a person to reach a place where such an idea is even considered
It’s very verbiage indicates some thought had been put to the idea.

Even now, I still have occasion to need advice from a parent when facing life’s hurdles.
How can I possibly consider leaving…mine are still so young.

I certainly don’t want them to have to watch this deterioration.
Locked in the theater, the endless horror splayed on the screen ahead.

I am grateful to my disease for some things…
To see the strength in my daughters… the oldest so patient and understanding with me.. never complaining when I need driven to ER for another pain episode that I can’t get under control despite the barrage of opiods here to throw at it…
I am confident both will handle life’s hurdles well.

My mom’s illness petrified me and I ran.
I avoided contact with her... I think because I didn’t know how to help her… I felt helpless
I didn’t do for her what I should have... I regret that deeply…
How my kids have the strength to do it I dunno… maybe they are trapped here and just do.
I’d like to think its because I have taught them well.. given them the resources they need in life to be strong, healthy…They help each other and work well together.
I feel guilty when I want to give up…


My own battle with mental health issues.
I remember standing in the hallway of our home..13 yrs old…
A closet at the end of the hallway, stores uniforms, a Kevlar vest, a gun cleaning kit and half a dozen handguns or so..
The smell of gun oil and shoe polish waft into your nostrils when the door opens.
A small snub-nosed .38 with the hammer spur filed off has come to fit my young hand well.

Pressed under my chin more times than I can count…throughout my teen years.. begging to stop the nagging endless noise in my head that no one else hears...
Until now, only one other person has ever known that this ever occurred.
I would be well into my 30’s when the noise would be replaced by sheer blank emptiness.

Watching Mariah with similar struggles...frustrated with the world around her.
I know she is experiencing the same challenges...I see it…
I hope to be able to help her manage this so that it doesn’t affect her life as negatively as it has mine.


A new MRI shows tumor growth.
A cm in three months.
That doesn’t sound like the slow growing this thing is supposed to be.
My hands have become more numb, more often.
My right hand is pretty much useless most of the time.
I worry that I will reach a point where I am unable to do what needs to be done.
I don’t trust anyone near me to do it.
I’m afraid I will be stuck somewhere, unable to affect my own treatment.
That scares me the worst.
I have my own hospice thank you.