Life/Death

I don't have a will or a living will. I am in constant danger of being smucked because of this daily challenge of mine against fate and irony and that Murphy guy.

I've been really too upset by this whole thing and haven't been able to write about it until now. Terri Schiavo died today and it's sad. But I don't know her. I should share my sadness with her family in the same subtle way such private tragedies affect all of us on a daily basis, which is to say, in a very minute, fleeting and passing way, if at all. I should have a living will, and so should everybody, not because there is a certain level of disability or inability or absence that separate the worth from the worthless, but because it is a private thing. Because that line is different for everybody.

Quite frankly, I don't know what my line is. It's a very difficult thing because I've been given a new perspective on what 'disability' means like a frying pan to the head in recent years. But god help me, god help all of us if some guy in a suit looking to score political points and some extra votes decides to take up my cause when I am without a voice. I think Terri Schiavo probably would have wanted her husband to make decisions for her, if she thought about it, during the moments she was collapsing to the floor in 1990. But who knows? What I am quite sure of is that she would not have wanted Jeb Bush or some other politician to be her guardian. How ironic that Republicans, long proponents of the "no government in your face" philosophy (which is not entirely bad or good in and of itself), want to get involved in the most personal, private thing there could ever be. Okay, so they do it with abortion too. And they're wrong there too.

Okay, so I've got to get on this will stuff.

But ultimately, a living will is a gift to the people you leave behind. I believe, that while it may have specifics about treatments and the like, it's ultimately there to say to your family and friends "I love you. I will forgive you no matter what results from your decision." And perhaps most importantly, it says "Thank you."