We’ve all heard about suicide being the cowards way out, but is it cowardly for everyone, every time? Even if it is then so what? Who gets to determine whether my way out is cowardly or the bravest possible thing to do to spare the survivors in my life? Perhaps I really don’t want to burden my kids with having to care for a cantankerous, mean and sometimes selfish old man. I know how that feels. I’ve been a caregiver for the better part of the past 20 years. I’m still doing it and probably will for many years to come. I find little joy to putting up with people who are afraid of facing death, who see themselves as above the fray and who think only of their own comfort and convenience and little whims. Yet, I put up with them when nobody else in my large family will put their own lives on hold to take care of dad till he dies. Even after death there will be more work, funeral arrangements, wills, estates and so on and I stand to gain exactly nothing. There’s no money left, no insurance, no big house to live in, just debts and lots of old junk and clothing nobody wants.
I have no money to pass along to my kids, just a lot of old tools for them to fight over when I’m gone.
I know my health is getting worse by the day and isn’t going to improve as I age. And although I know my kids have said they would take care of me in my old age they really don’t know just how much is really involved with my aging process.
It’s everything from cooking and cleaning up messes to helping an elderly person up and down, doctors appointments, emergency room visits and much more than most people who have never been a caretaker for elderly people even realize.
Both myself and the woman I love have taken care of elderly parents and others and now our time to become elderly is drawing near.
We’ve witnessed the loneliness and despair, the everyday aches and pains, the feeling of not being able to do the same things that they were always able to do for the past 70 years and little by little those things just vanished before their eyes.
In my father’s case, he’s lost two wives. His eyesight disappeared and his hearing is all but gone. He can vaguely remember things said to him or things he’s said or done. All of his old friends have all died off before him. He’s 89 years old, frail and for many years was the one person I always could count on to be there when I needed him, but now he’s a shell of the man I’ve known my entire life. My brother and sisters love and respect him, but they all live in other states 1000 miles away so the visits are far and few between, but somehow I know deep down they have no clue just how difficult he’s become to deal with day by day.
Others, my nieces and nephews have only memories of the grandpa he used to be and have no idea how hard he can be to just have a nice chat with. One went so far as to suggest that the only reason I care for him is for his money. There isn’t any other than his small social security check each month that barely covers the groceries and the heating bills, but don’t let reality get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.
Because both myself and the woman I love have had to be caretakers for the past several years we’re acutely aware of the hardships anyone who might take care of us in our old age will have to face we’ve decided to develop our own exit strategy so they will never be faced with such monumental burdens.
This post, as I write it will become part of the explanation as to why we’ve chosen the things we’re planning. We still have plenty of time and we’re not in a hurry, but when the time comes there will be nobody tasked with putting their lives on hold.
Selfish? Perhaps. Cowardly? Maybe, but neither of us sees it that way. We see it as the unburdening of the next generation .
4 comments
I agree with you wholeheartedly. I’ve taken care of both my parents. We have no children. I wish my husband felt the same.
Since suicide ends our worldly self. Suicide would seem, if anything, selfless after the fact.
A coward is a person who lacks the courage to do or endure dangerous or unpleasant things. Suicide is certainly dangerous and can be unpleasant so it is not for the cowardly.
Idk, 57. by your definition I fall into the cowardly category. Facing the past has been difficult enough, the future is nothing I want. So, even if it is cowardly, so what? I haven’t won prizes in other categories, either. No loss.
Facing an awful past is difficult indeed. Let them label us as they please I say.
When the coward label is put on the completer it seems to be an expression of anger. To put that label on the living who would rather not be here seems to show deep ignorance of what the act requires.