The thought of suicide is a great comfort, for it is what I shall employ if mere existence is ever all that I have. The difficulty will be that I must have the wit to identify the time, the weeks, the days, even the critical moment (for it will not be long) between my recognising the need to end my life and the loss of my physical ability to carry out the plan.
En helaas: there’s the rub. In die “(for it will not be long)”. Want voor de rest ben ik er helemaal mee eens:
There are those who damn the suicide for invading the prerogative of the Almighty. Many years, however, have passed since I abandoned the beliefs, observances and irrational prejudices of Christianity, and I have no moral or religious inhibitions against suicide.
I cherish the notion of dying easily and with my wits about me. I am 82 tomorrow and do not want to die a dribbling dotard waiting for the Queen’s congratulatory greeting in 2031.
Nor do I wish to cling to an increasingly wretched life made unconscionable misery by acute or chronic pain and the humiliations of nursing.
What virtue can there be in suffering, in impotent wretchedness, in the bedpans and pisspots, the feeding with a spoon, the baby talk, the dwindling mind and the senses slipping in and out of consciousness?