Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Dying
By: Cory Taylor (A Memoir)
Narrated By: Larissa Gallagher
Cory Taylor (Australian author, died at age 61 on July 15, 2016, born in 1955.)
Cory Taylor confronts the complicated question of what to do when a person knows they are nearing the end of their life. Taylor is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in 2005. Living with that diagnosis, Taylor recounts her life, religious beliefs, and a commemoration of her family relationships. She thinks of what her life means to herself and others. She waivers between living with her physical and mental deterioration or volitionally ending her life.
Taylor, though raised in a Christian household, identifies herself as agnostic.
In the 20th century, it is estimated that 200 to 240 million people identify themselves as atheists or agnostics. In 2013, that number increased to 450 to 500 million, about seven percent of the world population. Taylor chooses medically assisted death.
Having personally experienced a parent’s death and a parent’s physical and mental deterioration, a listener/reader will either condemn or condone a choice of assisted death.
Those with strong religious beliefs are likely to blame a person for killing themselves, while those who are agnostic or atheist are likely to have a different opinion. To some, life is hardship that is a human being’s obligation to either suffer or grow from, with conscious awareness of death’s inevitability. The fundamental question is–does one have the right to choose whether to live or die?
Seeing a parent’s life deteriorate despite the care of an attentive family member is heartbreaking.
An example is a son whose mother is dutifully cared for by her husband but recognizes the husband is too aged to handle the mother’s incapacities. What should a son or extended family do? There are hospice alternatives for the mother, but should she have a voice in deciding how she is to be treated? The husband realizes, a care facility is the only practical alternative for her needed care. The son or daughter is married and is consumed by their employment and making a living for their own career and family. The mother may or may not be able to express her opinion. The table is set for institutionalization.
The mother’s response may be to curl up in her new bed, refuse to eat and waste away in the eyes of a loving husband and a career consumed son or daughter.
One may ask oneself is hospice the only humane thing to do for a dying parent. If a parent is able to make a rational decision about continuation of life, would he/she choose to be treated in a hospice or choose to end life on their own terms?
REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE 