A Summer's Afternoon in a Meadow

A relatively long post today, but hopefully succinct. Choosing To Die finished not quarter of an hour ago on BBC2. Sir Terry Pratchett exploring the nuances of being able to tell when you want to go, weighing it up against guessing when you will no longer be able to do it yourself, trying to be dignified in dying- an outstanding programme, with exceptional people. Peter Smedley and Andrew Colgan were two outstanding gentlemen who knew that it was all they had left, in the time left when they still could, to end it before they were no longer able.

I have always been so assured of my own immortality. I turned 21 not six months ago, and waste some time in quixotic planning of things I may or may not ever do with my life. The one thing I do know is that, as for me death is the end of it and there is nothing on another side or in another world, I would never, ever want to give up.

And the thing is that these men haven't given up. They're just fighting in a different way. To give up they'd need to be in a position where, due to their degenerative diseases, they could not move, were unable to administer the lethal dosage to themselves. And so they fight the terrifying thoughts they must be experiencing in choosing to gain the dignity everyone deserves. While the last moments before Peter Smedley fell into sleep were perhaps not as dignified or clean cut as some would have you believe (with a Dignitas escort wiping dribble from your chin as you gasp for air and ask for water) it is a hundred miles away from being in that state twenty four hours a day and unable to change that.

What shocked me the most is that we die. That sounds infantile, but I firmly believe that by the time I'm eighty we'll be able to keep OAPs alive through medicine into their hundred and twenties. I never consider myself as a fifty year old checking out early- you don't. As humans we're designed not to dwell on it. but it could happen.

And so I appreciate the pot of tea I just made and the writing on the pad in front of me all the more. At the end of that hour of television I immediately felt I should get up, do things, experience life. I am currently sat ready to embark on what I hope will be many hours of short story writing this evening.

There are no funny pictures with this post. It would be indecent. There is no need to embellish the taboo any further. If I were not in such a reflective mood, I would be hammering on the keys right about now with expletives streaming across the screen at the fact that immediately after that poignant programme a series of talking heads who will hold no sway over the laws around assisted death have been ushered in to debate it ad infinitum on Newsnight. But now is not the time to be angry or callous.

The one thing that struck me the most is that we all do go, eventually. One thing more than any other phrase Sir Terry Pratchett uttered caught me. I, too, would want to go to sleep outside in the sunshine. Preferably in a meadow, on a hillside, overlooking someplace I had grown to love over many decades of a full life. But in the sunshine none the less.