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Down The Middle - Mar 25, 2005 - Printable Version
- Live and Let Die
by Down The Middle
Boy, is Michael Jackson pissed! Here, he's gone to all the trouble of personally showing up for court while suffering from an excruciatingly painful back injury...and now, that damn Schiavo gal has gone and stole away all of the prime media attention...and she did it just when he was beginning to show us that new step of his that I've been calling, "the newly neutered flamingo"). I think it's time for people to realize just what it takes to get up every morning and make those tough theatrical decisions of whether to dress up like Captain Crunch, or just blow it off altogether and wear the pajamas. But no! The only nation in the world that is plagued by Attention Deficit Disorder has decided this weeks melodramatic opera le detergente' will be Terri Schiavo, the poor woman who's life is being pitched back and forth by her family, the media, and every political clown under the sun. Even Tom Delay is said to have been recorded on tape, expressing his unmitigated joy about the Schiavo case keeping the "light" off of the most recent of his many ethics violations (that being the $70,000.00 vacation he and his wife received, courtesy of a registered foreign agent). Terri Schiavo, who has suffered helplessly for the last fifteen years, is now undergoing the final humiliation of her life, with her family playing the great American game of "tug-of-war" (tug on the tube, then stuff it back down her throat) and the networks providing us with the 24/7, "blow-by-blow" description of her demise, expressly for our entertainment pleasure (and the fact that they won't tell us the real news anymore). Let's all just hope they can get her to hold that death rattle until after the commercial break. I guess I really shouldn't be upset. After all, this is a question that many families will have to eventually face...families, just like my own.
Although my experiences were really quite different, I have tasted the bitter "life or death" question and all the raw emotions that go with it. Ten years ago, my brother made the decision to off himself, rather than face the ravages of AIDS. I found it hard to blame him, as he was getting reports of a close friend (not his partner) in California, whose suffering with the disease had advanced to the point where he was literally falling to pieces. My brother, himself, had developed cancer in his mouth and sinuses, and I recall sitting and visiting with him while he pulled strands of flesh out of the mouth that used to belt out songs from Broadway musicals. It was becoming all too apparent, things were going to get really bad.
We had talked about death and the afterlife. We had talked about the spiritual and we had talked about the void. We had talked about the Savior and we had talked about energy changing forms but never dying. I think we talked about it all...but we didn't say much when he gave me his suede gloves he had bought in Italy. We didn't say much when he gave me the sunglasses he had bought in Austria. We didn't say much when he gave me his tiger-eye ring (I have no idea where he bought that). And we didn't say much about his purchase of the Hemlock Society's "how to" book (He did show it to me).
While our unsuspecting parents watched TV, my brother walked back and forth in front of them, gathering all the necessary tools and materials necessary to the manufacturing of a "suffocation mask" and taking them to his bedroom, one at a time. After the folks had long gone to bed, he set his plan in motion, beginning with a midnight snack of over a hundred pills of various flavors. When the drugs began to take effect, he placed himself on the floor of his bathroom and then, strapped the mask in place, when he began to lose consciousness. This would have been the end of my brother, had not our mother heard him gasping for air. She found him unconscious, ripped the mask from his face and called for our father. The two of them, both over seventy years of age, dragged him to his room and lifted him into bed, but called for no assistance. They could not leave him to his death...but could save him, neither.
My brother laid in a drug induced coma for forty-eight hours and then, arose on the third day. His first words were, "What happened?". He couldn't get out of bed for another couple of days (we nursed him ourselves) but when he did, he worked his way onto the floor, crawling at first and then later, walking on "all fours". Within a few days, this young man's will to live would have him standing on his feet again. Like our parents, I couldn't be a part of his plan...but also like our parents, I would not try to save him for a more terrible death.
After weeks of contemplation about Terri Schiavo, I have come to realize, I could never remove the feeding tube from a body that feels no pain. I might not prevent her death...but I can not be the cause of it.
Two months after my brother had tried to take his own life, his kidneys failed. I rushed to his side but he was never to regain consciousness. His plan had not failed, it was just a little slow in succeeding.
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