MY BEST friend, Mike Capps, and I often discuss life and death issues these days. We’ve seen parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends pass away these past several years. It’s never easy losing loved ones.

One thing that we really agree on is this: people should be allowed to die at home.

There seems to be a modern drive to segregate the dying from the rest of us, by putting them in hospitals or in hospices, so that they can die removed from the home. Is it any wonder those who languish, awaiting death, are so unhappy with this situation?

In recent years, I have observed several people who have been dying, and knew they were dying. While they could still communicate, they practically begged to go home. They knew death awaited them, but they wanted to be in their own homes, with their own pets, their own family, their own things. Who can blame them?

THIS OBSESSION we currently have for prolonging the inevitable at the cost of thousands of dollars per day is insane. We seem trapped by a culture which takes its orders from people in white coats at hospitals, who, sadly, fear lawsuits from members of my profession.

I think highly of our doctors and nurses, too highly to have them spend their time tending the soon-to-be dead among us. The way we seem to do it, the last few days of life for many of us will be spent unconscious, our bodies wasting away in organ failure. Who is served by this process?

Anyone who has ever had to fight to get constant pain medication for a loved one who is dying knows the agony of dealing with staffers who insist it’s not time for another shot just yet. Says who? While radio talk show hosts seem able to obtain massive quantities of significant pain relievers for recreation, average Americans wait in pain for more morphine or other opiates. It makes no sense.

WHEN MY time is upon us, please let me die in my home. Please give me a morphine drip and the opportunity to use as much as I need. Do I not own my life, if I own nothing else in this world? Am I not the best person to decide when “enough is enough?” Is the world enhanced if I last three more days under constant care, as strangers watch my organs fail, as a machine breathes for me?

Death is a part of life, and we cannot corral it and make it something foreign. We all have to take that journey. We leave this world by ourselves, and we should be able to make that journey to whatever awaits us without getting a permission slip from someone we barely know.

Home. It’s my favorite place, the place I spend most of my time, and the place I cherish the most. I suspect it is your favorite place, too. If you want to die at home, make your wishes known to your doctors and family while you can. Let them hear your wishes now, while you have the ability to tell them.

© 2009, Pappy Moore, All Rights Reserved.

Pappy Moore is a humorist, a native son of East Texas who still makes the piney woods his home.

oaktreefm58@hotmail.com Pappy Moore Archives