A better place

Why is it when people hear of another person's passing, they offer this comfort to survivors: "They're in a better place."

Is that really always the case? How would you know, anyway? A few years ago, I wrote a paper for a class about people's right to die. A key source document was Derek Humphries,' "Final Exit." The whole thing about it is, What is life?

A fundamental question is, can a person in a wheelchair enjoy his or her life? Absolutely. Can another person confined thusly have a miserable existence? Of course. Who gets to decide which one gets to enjoy life and which has to suffer? Assuming there is no god making this decision and that life just happens, who gets to decide? Congress? May the stars fall from the sky first. The family? Who's to say they will make an unbiased decision. A court? No better than congress and assuredly not unbiased, people.

The point made by that long ago paper is that the decision should be made by the person whose life is in question. There are those who can enjoy a life as a paraplegic or quadriplegic. I suppose they are to be admired. Let them live their lives as best they know how. Nobody else is in a place to determine what is right for those individuals. Only the individual should decide.

By the same token, if a helpless confined person decides that life has already ended for them, who are we to say they are required to live? The decision is no more ours than the decision that a guy should die if he wants to live. Why would we be in a better position to tell a person he should live if he wants to die?

I'm not talking about your healthy individual suffering from depression who is looking for a way to commit suicide. No, those people should be helped with whatever it is they need in order to make the decision to live. They have a treatable problem and should be assisted to take every opportunity life has to offer.

No, I'm talking about the person whose physical ability to live has been severely impaired and for whom opportunity has been severely limited.

Sooooo, having said all of that, my original point is, why is it that people think that when someone dies, they should say, "It's just as well. They're in a better place now?" How on earth or heaven would they know? Suppose you're a believer, maybe the guy is now in hell treading flames? How would you know that the person is sitting on the right hand of a (sadistic) god? Regardless, what if there nothing after this life, maybe the guy really wanted to live, not die, how does that put him in a better place? I should think that it's only a better place if the person was really interested in dying in order to end suffering at the end of a well-lived life.

Maybe I'm picking on a point which hasn't much impact but hey. how many people have ever thought of this? I've never heard it discussed.

--Wag--