An aunt I grew up with is gone, but what’s on my mind is not her legacy, or the memories; I’ll get to those and ruminate on them in time.

What’s on my mind is a concept. THe concept of “quality of life”. The concept that someone may decide that there’s too much pain, too much cost, too much keeping them from enjoying life. And that concept led to the events that my family is going through now. 

My aunt had a myriad of internal issues. She had fallen in her home repeatedly. She didn’t feel as if she could keep going the way she wanted to keep going. So, in her final days, she demanded no more surgeries. No tubes, no monitors. “Let me go home.”

And so she died at home, surrounded by her children and a host of grandkids and friends. She called her shot. She said “enough”. We’ve gone through the last couple of years where people died alone in hospitals; surely we’d have empathy by now?

There’s a time to lay the burden down and rest.

And this isn’t about being “weak” or “wimping out”. Everyone has a limit. The strong can’t be strong ALL the time. Sure, you can call on God and Jesus and Allah to walk you across the sand one more time, but none of them can admininster that morphine that’ll ease the pain of those last breaths. 

I am thankful that she was in my life, that she gave me memories to cherish, that she raised a myriad of people I’m related to and love very much. She deserved to go out how she wanted to. And she definitely deserves not to be second-guessed on her decision.

Rest easy, Aunt Nina. You were loved, and showed love. In a little corner of this place, you existed and we were better for it.