Para entonces

by Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera

Quiero morir cuando decline el día,
en alta mar y con la cara al cielo;
donde parezca un sueño la agonía,
y el alma, un ave que remonta el vuelo.

No escuchar en los últimos instantes
ya con el cielo y con el mar a solas,
más voces ni plegarias sollozantes
que el majestuoso tumbo de las olas.

Morir cuando la luz, triste retira
sus áureas redes de la onda verde,
y ser como ese sol que lento expira:
algo muy luminoso que se pierde...

Morir, y joven: antes que destruya
el tiempo aleve la gentil corona;
cuando la vida dice aún: soy tuya,
aunque sepamos bien que nos traiciona.

I learned this poem when I was in college but couldn't remember who wrote it, but the internet is a wonderful thing. I wrote the first line of the poem and voliá. I found it. I remember feeling that this poem expressed exactly how I felt about life. So you see I have always been concerned with the question of death.

Link to his bio:http://www.ale.uji.es/gutnajer.htm

Terri Schiavo

So something new, for me at least, came up on the Terri Schiavo case. The chemical imbalance that induced her heart attack and eventual brain damage came about as a consequence of bulimia. Teri had been a chubby teenager and was obsessed with not gaining weight. That gives a totally new meaning to accusations that she is being starved to death. Especially if one considers that she was already on a pretty destructive path.

But then as a spouse, as a parent what do you do when a thing like this happens? Which brings me to thoughts of euthanasia. I think it is much more painful, cruel and costly to let her die slowly than to mercifully end her life. As a parent myself, I can not see myself allowing my child to die a slow, painful death. Would I have the courage to help him die peacefully? I don’t know, but I do know that that is the choice my mind, if not my heart, would make. I worry that something catastrophic like that will happen to me and that I will literally rot in a bed, an unnecessary expense and a nuisance to those left to take care of me. I still haven’t’ seen Mar Adentro, but from what I know of the film, the main character wanted someone to help him die. It took a practical stranger to see his wish come true.

There’s an episode—first season—of Law and Order in which an AIDS activist is accused of killing several men diagnosed with AIDS. His defense argues among other things that the onslaught of AIDS is terrible and that these men wanted someone to help them end their lives so that they did not have to suffer through the illness. (Of course, this is in a time where AIDS medication was still not common, nor accessible. I understand that one can live a pretty healthy life now even if afflicted with the virus.) The point is that one should be able to choose how one wants to die. Death with dignity. Why wither away causing pain and inconvenience to others? oh well…