An aunt I grew up with is gone, but what’s on my mind is not her legacy, or the memories; I\u2019ll get to those and ruminate on them in time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What\u2019s on my mind is a concept. THe concept of \u201cquality of life\u201d. The concept that someone may decide that there\u2019s too much pain, too much cost, too much keeping them from enjoying life. And that concept led to the events that my family is going through now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My aunt had a myriad of internal issues. She had fallen in her home repeatedly. She didn\u2019t feel as if she could keep going the way she wanted to keep going. So, in her final days, she demanded no more surgeries. No tubes, no monitors. \u201cLet me go home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so she died at home, surrounded by her children and a host of grandkids and friends. She called her shot. She said \u201cenough\u201d. We\u2019ve gone through the last couple of years where people died alone in hospitals; surely we\u2019d have empathy by now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s a time to lay the burden down and rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And this isn\u2019t about being \u201cweak\u201d or \u201cwimping out\u201d. Everyone has a limit. The strong can\u2019t be strong ALL the time. Sure, you can call on God and Jesus and Allah to walk you across the sand one more time, but none of them can admininster that morphine that\u2019ll ease the pain of those last breaths. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am thankful that she was in my life, that she gave me memories to cherish, that she raised a myriad of people I\u2019m related to and love very much. She deserved to go out how she wanted to. And she definitely deserves not to be second-guessed on her decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rest easy, Aunt Nina. You were loved, and showed love. In a little corner of this place, you existed and we were better for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An aunt I grew up with is gone, but what’s on my mind is not her legacy, or the memories; I\u2019ll get to those and ruminate on them in time. What\u2019s on my mind is a concept. THe concept of \u201cquality of life\u201d. The concept that someone may decide that there\u2019s too much pain, too […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160,"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions\/160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}