The process of death is often painful and lonely. It can take a very long time to die. Remember that it took nine months to be born. There are no quick fixes.
We are all human. Sometime during your lifetime you will most probably watch or try to help someone or many people you love go through the dying process. Life is valuable because it is limited. We forget that.
Too many times we hear stories about people saying that they will just fall asleep and never wake up. We also hear the ubiquitous tale that you will have a great meal with your favorite person and then drop dead. Seldom does death happen that way.
Most often death lingers. You are diagnosed with a disease. You don’t want life to end. You agree to treatment. You endure pain and fiscal loss to try to hang on. Things may get better or things may get worse. However, at some time, especially with older age, death comes knocking. You might stave it off but there can be huge costs. You may not know anything about your surroundings but you are alive. You may have bouts of consciousness and others of pain. Your loved ones may work to convince you to try something else. You may feel that your own decisions are constantly being overridden or that you are no longer capable of knowing what to decide.
Even if your medical directive is completed with specificity you won’t know exactly what treatments you want in some theoretical situation. You have a general idea like you don’t want to be kept alive by machines if you were barely conscious and had no hope of recovery. You might say that you don’t want artificial nutrition or invasive medical treatments. But can you say with certainty now in a clear healthy state of mind that you don’t want a ventilator for a short time? How about you don’t want any more surgeries even if it could make dying more comfortable? Or a blood transfusion?
Dying is usually difficult and protracted. All you can do is be sure that you have told your loved ones as well as written directives that guide the well and living to follow through with your general desires. Unfortunately you won’t know the specifics of your own death in time to say yes or no in most cases. Death as stated can be long, lonely and painful.
