Say Goodbye To Those Who Have Made The Courageous Decision To Leave
When someone you love dies, words become difficult to control. During the pain, the words sometimes make their way in large strides, even if nothing we say manages to give shape to that gigantic emptiness that has been created within us. We know that in that moment a garden of colors that was alive in us dies and there will no longer be anyone who will make it flourish again.
Loved ones are flower gardens that give life to our life, rain in arid moments, colors in gray evenings, shade when the sun burns. Sometimes we forget that no garden blooms forever, that sooner or later winter will come to force us to say goodbye.
Until recently, death was a stranger guest knocking on the door without warning. Things are different now. Science is able to keep us alive even when there is only a body tested by the soul, which breathes and keeps the heartbeat. Furthermore, paradoxically, science offers us the possibility of prolonging our pain, without, however, giving us the hope of not dying.
On the other hand, nowadays it is even possible to decide the day, the time and the way in which to die, to get to that place that science is not yet able to reach. Euthanasia is one of these forms of programmed death which, being predictable, leaves us without that feeling of lack of control.
Leaving without knowing how to say goodbye
We are all doomed to die since we are born. However, not knowing exactly when we will leave leaves us with a great feeling of uncertainty, relief and fear at the same time. Conversely, when death takes the form of a precise month, day, or hour, the clock begins to advance at an agonizing pace. Every minute that passes is one minute less. As a result, each shared experience turns into an opportunity to say goodbye.
Euthanasia is one of those extreme cases in life that puts us in front of a painful paradox. Love, on the one hand, which wants to respect the will of those who want to resort to this practice and must be ready to say goodbye with gratitude in the heart. And again love, on the other hand, which despairs to think about what the world will be like without that person, about what it will be like to look for her and not find her, if not in the furrows of our tears.
Nobody says goodbye to life without a little sadness. No one makes the decision to euthanize without having spent many sleepless nights, in the extreme attempt to find an alternative. What you really want is for the physical or emotional pain to stop forever.
The decision comes when one becomes aware of the fact that, due to illness, one can no longer be the same person, because suffering will invade every drop of time left without leaving room for individual freedom. It is precisely there, in that moment, that death appears as a way out.
“I will go away. And the birds will continue to sing “…
It is not easy to understand and accept the decision to die. Not only do we fail to accept having to say goodbye to a loved one, but we also do not accept the idea that the human being can take control of his own destiny, deciding when his life should end.
We find it hard to admit these truths, because we know that a little of our happiness goes with that person. Saying goodbye, therefore, is the beginning of an uncertain journey that leads us everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Every time we see that person we panic, remembering that they are there now, but that in a week or so we will never see them again. That what we see are the last smiles, the last words we will exchange with her, and then never have her again.
And inside of us we cry, so that the brave person in front of us does not see or sense our tears, because our pain is nothing compared to what she is feeling. We feel the need to hug her and never let go, but we know what we have to do is let her go.
The pain increases when we realize that that person will soon die, but the love we feel for them will not die. It will survive by turning, at first, into a silent lament, when we think back to its absence, when we will miss its way of laughing, when we will have to ask it for something we do not know or when we need some of its goodness instead. of all that cold that invades us. We will thus understand that we will have to say goodbye many times, even after the person is gone.
U nce passed this first and intense moment of pain , return those gardens we left uninhabited and we realize, with surprise, that the flowers are gone, but their scent. Much less the sound of birdsong, which is now a music where our heart can find refuge. Finally, we will understand that there are seeds that can be collected indefinitely, and we will say “I have cleaned the mirror of my cure … now it reflects the moon”.
PERSONAL NOTE: Have a nice trip, my beloved friend …
