Euthanasia: Priceless Gift from the Gods.

Yes. I said it.

Copperplate Nr. 21 from John Flaxman's Iliad, 1973.
Hypnos & Thanatos carry the body of Sarpedon.

I don't pretend to have any answers regarding the "True nature" of the gods. I simply choose to relate in my own personal, often very private way. 

Besides, I am not so sure it really matters much, as long as we are true to how we hold Them in our hearts. 

Whatever They may be -- spirits, ideas, incarnate beings, constructs, archetypes or concrete entities -- there are times when my gratitude for the gift of Their existence (regardless of Their "True nature") is so immense I find myself at a loss for words, gesture, offering.

❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎

Fear & Suffering are my biggest hangups.

I cannot bear either. I can bear them even less when someone I love is in Fear or in Suffering.

When the condition of Suffering becomes permanent & incurable, having the option of calling upon the merciful intervention of the children of Nyx, the brothers Hypnos & Thanatos (in that order) is nothing less than priceless. 

Why do we withhold this from ourselves when we give & gain so much relief & comfort from employing Their temperate, humane skills for our beloved nonhuman companions? 

❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎

I tell a friend that I have just helped the Skeleton Cat die -- in my arms -- because her hindquarters were wasted & she could not walk, or use the bathroom without assistance while an aggressive tumor was working its way out in several directions from behind her eye. Yet her wits were still 100%... my little fighter. 

I could not bear it.

My friend tells me, "That's what happened to my dad. It was hell." 

Dad had to live on in Suffering.

❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎

Whether we choose to recognize it or not, the choice to die at the right time, as each individual deems it, is a gift. (It ought to be a right.)

"Drugs are bad," our culture says -- yet we force our people, our beloved ones, to live their last days, weeks, months, years dependent on opiates & other narcotics because we will not permit them the final dignity, the gift, of choice, of mercy, of endings. 

In the refrigerator we have a pharmacy bag filled with tiny, abandoned syringes, each one bearing a Skeleton Cat sized dose of feline-formulated morphine. They will never be used -- she has left them behind.

❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎

This is obviously not a casual decision. Making this call on behalf of my beloved, my best girl, was traumatic & one of the most crushing tasks of my lifetime. But it was still a gift. 

She was a gift. 

Her merciful death was also a gift, not that I would choose to trade. 

Except that I did. 

For her welfare, for her dignity & because I love her enough to give her that immeasurable & unpopular gift. 

❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎

I very rarely petition the gods, but I made two special requests this past month: First, I asked Mother Nyx for Her ancient, dispassionate wisdom. "Please, please help me recognize when it is the right time..." I asked, fearing my emotions would cloud my judgement. Second, when I knew it was the right time, I asked that Hypnos & Thanatos kindly guide my baby girl into the soft, quiet Darkness of the Abyss.

What ensued, on all accounts, was a gracious, waveless series of events culminating in the uncomplicated, compassionate end of my beautiful friend. How do I thank the gods for this?