It's Your Life, Anyway

That’s a play on the title of one of my favorite movies, 1981’s “Whose Life Is It, Anyway?” in which Richard Dreyfuss plays a successful sculptor who is left paralyzed from the neck down following a traffic accident and goes to court seeking permission to die.

I am not opposed to assisted suicide, which has now gained a level of acceptance. We allow abortions, so why shouldn’t similar allowances be made on the other end of life? And typically, it is done with friends and family made aware. But the suicide of those who can easily do it themselves is another thing, as in the recent cases of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, and prior to them, Robin Williams and some others. Folks even get a little angry, as in, “They had everything: money, fame, lovers, and maybe even a sense of accomplishment, so what was their problem?” When it’s a celebrity, especially a beloved one, part of the sadness and anger is related to the fact that their gift-giving has ended. We won’t get anything more from them.

The basic fact is, we don’t really know people. We believe that great artists are telling us everything about themselves through their art – but we’re often wrong. We buy into the mask they present to us, which in some cases only adds to the pressure they are under to keep wearing it. And we get upset when it’s torn off.

The problem with suicide is that the perpetrator thinks that he or she is doing it in isolation. Often, the opposite is true. They have, in that moment, forgotten the positive impact they have had on the lives of others…and what awful impact killing themselves will have on those receive the news after they’re gone. There are people in my life I thought disliked me, whom I have resumed contact with on social media in recent years, Now, they’re telling me how great I was earlier on and even how much they learned from me. I sure didn’t get that impression at the time they were learning it.

I bet almost all of us have toyed with the idea of offing ourselves at fleeting moments. One of the hard parts is finding a painless and un-messy way. But there is one overarching reason that I would probably never do it. None of us knows what’s on the “other side.”  I was raised Catholic and was taught that suicide is a mortal sin. And you know where they say mortal sinners go after death. Suppose the Catholics are right? If what they say is true, whatever your situation is here on Earth, if you kill yourself, you will be in a lot deeper doo-doo than you are right now, and it will last forever. It’s not a chance I want to take.