It dawned on me today as I heard the news of Terri Schiavo’s death, that I actually do have experience and perspective on the issue of the right to die. This is a long one folks, so I’ll give you the choice to click and read or to skip it.

My mother chose to die. She chose to stop dialysis. She chose to stop her medications. She chose to come home and stop fighting and being kept alive by artificial means. Certainly she wasn’t on a feeding tube or a life support machine (although I suppose you could argue that dialysis is in effect life support since without it she would have and did die), but still she chose to cut off her means of survival for any length of time.

I never thought twice about the process of her life ending…about her right to choose whether or not she wanted to continue to live or to choose her time, place, and way of death with dignity. Obviously, I thought twice about letting go of her and letting her make that choice, but in the end, it wasn’t my choice to make, it was hers. And thankfully, blessedly, she was able to make the choice for herself and verbally communicate it to me and my husband and my father in the presence of her doctor.

Therein lies the difference. Terri Schiavo may have communicated her wishes with her husband at some point that she wouldn’t want to be kept alive under those circumstances. Or she may not have. Really, the only person alive who knows that for sure is her husband, and his motives are suspect, so it is doubtful that anyone will ever fully believe him. However, and let me stress this, the letter of the law has been followed. Because he is her husband, he had the final say in what happened to her, whether anyone (including her parents) agree with it or not. Whether that is right or wrong or should be that way is debatable, but the law is clear and the reason that the courts really couldn’t do anything more than what they did is because the law IS so clear on that issue. Had her parents been able to present something in writing, then the courts would have had the means to do something else or to make a different choice, but there was nothing and so their hands were basically tied.

At this point (and I’m telling myself this as well), I think we need a PSA for living wills. If you don’t want something like this to happen to you some day, no matter what your age, health, or outlook, MAKE A LIVING WILL SO THERE WILL NOT BE ANY QUESTION AS TO WHAT YOUR WISHES ARE IN THAT CIRCUMSTANCE.

Now, I’d like to address the way that Terri died - basically by starving to death. It sounds inhumane, yes, and I’m not sure that is the way I would want to go, but let me give you some perspective. When my mother came home, she was immediately taken off dialysis, and we were told she could probably survive for up to a week without it. My mother came home late on a Friday afternoon and died in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. It is clear to me that she was ready to go and she let go. Her doctor came to the house to check on her on that Monday (imagine that a house call!). She checked her heart rate, her pulse, that type of thing, and said she was peaceful and calm and we were doing a good job. My mother didn’t have a bite of food after Saturday afternoon. Her last “meal” as it were was the KFC mashed potatoes she asked for. She had little bits of water here and there to keep her mouth hydrated and keep her comfortable, but as she started deteriorating on Saturday evening, she basically slipped into a deep sleep and only came to when we were changing her bed and cleaning her up. And even then, when she would talk to us it would be pretty nonsensical and rambling (due to the morphine). She had a morphine drip attached to her and there was some other medication I gave her by mouth that I don’t remember. She told me when she was still conscious that she didn’t want morphine and I told her it wasn’t morphine. I lied. I think God will forgive me for that one. There was no way I was going to let her be in pain, and the main reason she didn’t want the morphine was that she knew it would make her “loopy” and it did, but really what other choice did we have? Let her die as painfree as possible or let her be in pain? To me, there was absolutely no choice.

Anyway, at no time did my mother seem to be suffering even though she was getting absolutely no sustenance, and as much as I hate to admit it, I would venture to guess that Terri Schiavo, who was being given morphine as well, probably was not suffering either. I know it took her a much longer time to die, but morphine is good stuff. It puts you in a place where you are just not really aware of what is going on around you or to you or in you. I honestly think that she probably didn’t suffer much if at all. Really. It took hearing she was on morphine and reliving my mother’s death in my mind to realize that was most likely the case. I think it is probably true that the brain is able to find ways to compensate and shut down parts of the body like pain centers and all that and go into that euphoric state that they have been talking about. Our bodies are amazing machines. They have incredible coping mechanisms, and honestly folks, I don’t think she was suffering. I would hope that in a civilized society that we have found the means to make people comfortable and peaceful as they die and not suffering and in pain. I have all the faith in the world in hospice workers. They are amazing people. I don’t know how they do what they do. I could never do it. But they know what they are doing. They know how to manage pain. They do it well. I witnessed it with my mother. She didn’t moan, she didn’t struggle, she didn’t cry out. She just slowly slowly slipped away. Peacefully. Surrounded with love. And I believe with all my heart that Terri Schiavo did too.

In the end, we should all have the right to die the way we want. With dignity, with people who love us, not connected to machines that prolong our lives when we don’t want them to, with soft music, and prayers, and calming voices, and the knowledge that we are going to a better place or even just a different plane of existence. I don’t know what Terri Schiavo wanted, and in this situation, that is the only thing that I can find that concerns me. The process itself does not concern me. The legal struggles and the fight between people who are supposed to love her concerns me. But out of this, I hope we all learn a valuable lesson. Put it in writing. Don’t make those you love suffer because you didn’t tell them what you want or because they have to make a decision that is just way too heartwrenching to make. Make it for them. Let that be your last give of love to those that love you.