I know exactly what I want when I die.
I want to be cremated. I don’t want to be buried. I want my ashes to be spread on Great East Lake in Maine where I have a summer house. That house is my absolute favorite spot in the world; I keep pictures of the beach on my walls at school and home. I have had the best memories there that anyone could ask for: cookouts, a beach, a boat, waterskiing, tubing, relaxing on my penguin float with the built in koozie and killer badminton and Trivial Pursuit games with the family. There is no place better for an eternal resting place in my mind.
I also want to be an organ donor. I want my cat Marlin to be cremated and spread in the same spot when he dies. I want my service outside in a park or on the beach. I am a big nature lover and cannot fathom the idea of having a funeral inside a church or a wake in a funeral home. As far as bequeathing possessions, I haven’t really gotten that far in my life to own anything of importance yet, but all of this is secondary to my main concern.
Never ever keep me alive by machines. I do not want to be kept artificially alive when it is my time to go. Do not try anything drastic or heroic if I am declared brain dead. Let me go. I truly believe the soul leaves the body well before the body dies. I am my soul; my body simply houses it, and I think it is useless to keep the body when the soul is gone. It simply prolongs the hurt for everyone involved.
But I have never told anyone this, so how would anyone know what I wanted?
I have thought about death and dying, being paralyzed, declared brain-dead or being on a ventilator. But what have I done to ensure that my exact wishes are met? I know everyone else has thought about it too with the recent events surrounding these issues.
The recent controversy over Terry Schiavo should only drive home the importance of something like a living will, which would have stated explicitly what she wanted. Terry’s husband and parents had two different agendas. Her husband wanted her feeding tube removed, while her parents wanted to keep her alive. But they both forgot what was important.
What would Terry, who was 26 at the time a potassium deficiency caused by bulimia felled her, have wanted for herself if she could tell them?
Unfortunatly, no one knew because no one expected her collapse. Afterwards, her husband and parents argued about what her wishes were, but without any certainty as to what her wishes were. This could all have been avoided if Terry had a living will because she would have already decided and made known what she wanted.
Many college students seem to think they are invincible and that nothing can hurt them. I know I have thought that. We stay out all night partying and pumping noxious substances into our bodies. We drive or get in a car with someone who maybe shouldn’t be driving. We ‘hook up’ with assorted people with no emotional attachments. And for what? All in the name of fun.
That fun can go wrong, deadly wrong, as last year only so sadly reminds us. The tragic death of Frank Marx ’04, only days before his graduation, and the debilitating accident of Sean Reilly ’05 are too close a reminder that we are not invincible and that things can go wrong. Terry was only four years older than a college senior.
After Terry’s death, I feel it is of the utmost importance for everyone, especially college students, to at least talk to their parents or siblings about making an official living will. Terry failed to make one and she languished for fifteen years in nursing homes until her feeding tube was removed.
She survived 13 days without food or water and she was at the heart of a heated private family matter which was blown into a national case. Don’t give anyone the power to do that to you.
Use your own power to draft a living will. Make sure this does not happen to you. Make your own choices while living, and they will be honored in your death.
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