There is a plight of a young woman who’s name is Brittany that I have been following as of late. She has terminal brain cancer. She has chosen to ‘Die with Dignity” and take a dosage of pills prescribed by her doctor to die at a time of her choosing instead of going through the pain and suffering of the brain cancer.

Her story can be found by following this web page:
http://www.thebrittanyfund.org/

I am sure that she and her family have had a terrible time with all of this. Cancer in any form is just disgusting. Tumors in any form are painful, and scary. I have several clients and friends right now with cancer and/or tumors or both. They are deciding on treatments, their families are scared, and I had one call me just recently that told me about how she was just ready to give up. She went to her doctors and said that she did not think she could take the treatment any more that she was feeling worse from that than she was with the cancer and she was close to deciding to just allow the cancer to run its course.

I remember the day that Dean signed Hospice papers only to have him suffer a stroke a day later. As I look back to those days I can see where the stroke was indeed a blessing to Dean. He would have been miserable and hated every single second of being in a bed ridden hospice situation. I am not sure how I would have handled that either. There are many times I thought about that stroke and the timing of it and realizing that in a lot of ways Dean had a lot of control over those days and moments and how much of that was just his lack of wanting to put the family through or he go through any more himself. Seems really similar to the story I just heard from my one client and the story I am reading about Brittany and her choice to ‘Die with Dignity”.

I don’t know what the right answer is. I think the answer may be different for different families and different situations. There are many of you that know that I often refer to movies when drawing on examples and I can’t help thinking about a scene in Star Trek: The Final Frontier where Dr. McCoy is taken back to a time when he ‘helped’ his father die only to have the cure for the disease he was suffering from found a month later.

That is a distinct possibility and something I am sure everyone that is going through some type of terrible illness situation thinks about. Yet, what is the correct answer?

Each and every day there are choices that we need to make for ourselves and our own personal growth. The choices we make will indeed affect other people. They then have the responsibility to decide how they will react to choices we make that affect them. When we wrap our decisions with love we cannot go wrong. Not everyone around us will agree with us and we may be in fact be judged by others as non-loving. Still, if LOVE really is the underlying reason and NOT Fear or Worry or Hatred then the decision is just. Our pathway is that of learning and love. EVERYONE is put on this earth to learn love and grow by learning from each other. Only you and Divine Spirit understand the mission set for you on this planet. Only you and Divine Spirit understand if you are wavering from that mission with your actions.

I often hear the words of Rev. Janet Nohavec when I think of situations in which I feel uncomfortable. I think of her words in situations where I am trying to decide what is a just thing for me to do based on love even when I do not feel that same level of commitment from others. … “God Bless Everyone.” Have respect for them as a child of Divine, send them love and blessings. It does not mean that you need to be a part of what you feel uncomfortable with. Acting in love is also acting in your own truth.

There are a lot of people that are going to not like the way Brittany has decided to die. There are also a lot of people that are sending her all the best and are supporting her decision. With this one, as well as a lot of things in life, I am not sure we will totally know the answer until we all meet in the Light of the other side. We may even learn that there was no ‘right’ answer at all.

Until then remember that difficult people deserve our love, difficult decisions, situations and even past mistakes all deserve our love. The blessings we give out always return to us.

Death with Dignity?