by Gwynn Alcorn

Created on: November 21, 2009   Last Updated: November 23, 2009

Death & Dying By Decision

To be or not to be, that is the question. This oft-quoted sentence comes from Hamlet, when he was making his decision about ending his life.

It is amazing how many quotations from Shakespeare have crept into our language without many of us knowing their original context.

Most people do not make a decision about dying. Death happens to them.

My grandfather was 51 when he died just after the Dirty Thirties. He left a farm laden with debt, seven children and a wife who soon had a nervous breakdown. A good time to die? I think not.

But die he did, and I never had the privilege of knowing him. But I wanted to, oh, how I wanted to. My mother told me he would have liked me because I stood for justice and helping others, just like he did. Grampa was buried in a country graveyard near the road on my way to school. Whenever I walked to school, I would carefully inspect the roads all around. If I was totally alone, I would wave and call out, Hi Grampa.

I think that started my fascination with cemeteries. Not because they are full of dead people, but because they are full of people who were once alive. All my life I have been fascinated by graveyards, slowly walking among the markers, and trying to visualize the lives of those whose bones lie there.

My Mom's mother wasted for years in the Tuberculosis Sanitarium. Her frail body would quiver as she asked my Mom each week, Why can't I die? Why can't I go home? Mom would gently answer, God must have need of your prayers. She did not join my grandfather in death until 25 years after he died so unexpectedly.

It is kind of a joke that most people fear public speaking more than death. Maybe that is true. Death is not so bad for the person who dies, although it is usually very bad for the ones left behind. But something worth fearing is the manner and the timing of dying.

I do not fear death at all, never have, but I certainly do fear dying before I get all my living done, and I particularly fear the manner of dying that might be my lot.

Perhaps you have that fear too.

I always thought death from old age would be peaceful. A person would just get weaker and then stop breathing.

When my 14-year-old Keeshond died of old age a few years ago, I discovered with horror that a peaceful death was not to be her lot. She had always been a schizophrenic dog; she went a little crazy if she did not understand what was expected of her and she became terrified, especially at the end of her life. I spent three days

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