by Chris de Serres

Created on: September 10, 2008   Last Updated: March 17, 2009

Justified is an interesting word. In the realm of living it seems very applicable. We want to go about our dealings in this world having reasonable qualifications for the choices we make. Suicide seems so very unjustified doesn't it? I mean, sitting in our living rooms, calculating our own current state of affairs, we have trouble calculating this equation into our lives. We can't help but not apply it to ourselves in a personal way and react emotionally, accordingly, and justifiably.

I am 34 years old and can't really relate to a choice to die. The one thing I can do is imagine how it can be justified, regardless of any strong upsurging of personal religion or spiritual belief, and how it can stand to be a viable choice. But try as I might I will always see suicide from my own point of reference, which is a happy person who has so much to live for.

You have to be able to entertain the choice of suicide though to even attempt to answer the question of justification.

There is nothing rational about choosing to die, or is there? My grandmother died in a great deal of pain. She had arthritis at least for 30 years. Her caretaker and steadfast companion died many years ago. Before that, most of her close friends had passed for one reason or another. Her husband died 40 years ago. She never remarried, raising 7 children as a single mother alone. She lived on an island, relatively isolated from her 4 daughters who had long since moved away to pursue lives of their own and who rarely visited.

I remember the last ten years of her life, on the few occasions that I went to visit her, she had these incredible shakes. Her hands wouldn't stop moving, her legs twitched, and her eyelids fluttered uncontrollably. This was her every day. Her reality.

She was so happy to see people, but her days were mostly spent alone to her thoughts and feelings. The one thing that she did have was her own home to live in. This was taken away from her eventually as she wasn't able to live without daily assistance any longer.

I could never truly understand the emotional and physical pain she navigated through on a daily basis. As a kid I could never quite put my finger on the feeling she evoked when I came around to see her. She was waiting to die, and that's how I have come to resolve my own feelings now.

So I say that asking or demanding justification is selfish in itself. As selfish as many people see the act of suicide, it's supremely more selfish to think that those who choose death need to justify it to us among the living in some way. Death is not about us. It's about those who choose it. Asking for justification is making it about us, isn't it?

Even so, we must answer this question and if you've read this far I think you know how I feel about it. Who are we? We are clearly not them. Nor will we ever be. That is what we must understand.

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