The Ultimate Decision
Now, folks, I’m not a natural born killer and calling the animal hospital to make an appointment to have Beauregard “put down” this coming Saturday morning was a difficult thing to do. Yes, he’s nearly 16 years old, blind as a bat, nearly deaf, completely incontinent and suffering from what surely must be the canine version of Alzheimer’s disease. And, yes, he would have been long dead had he spent his life in a pack of dogs for they have their own ways of dealing with the weak and elderly. But, by adopting Beau as a young puppy, we assumed the pack’s life and death responsibility for him.
“Put down” is a euphemism for euthanasia which, in turn, is a nice word for causing death which is, of course, is the very definition of that old Anglo-Saxon root word, kill, a phonetic development of the word, quell. And, no matter how much spin you put on it, the whole thing boils to a premeditated killing of old Beau.
As a meat eater of long standing, I have come to accept the killing of one animal for the culinary benefit of another. I have no vision of the beef cow from which the T-bone steak on which I am gnawing was so artfully extracted by the butcher at the slaughter house. Likewise, I have no problems with the capital punishment of murderers even though their death is a premeditated homicide. And, I have no moral objections to euthanasia. Indeed, I have a legal document entitled “A Desire to Die a Natural Death” that describes the dire conditions under which someone is requested to “pull the plug” for me in the event I cannot pull it myself. Accordingly, death and dying are not the issue. Rather, it’s the deciding that the time has come for death and dying when they are the means only unto themselves.
The CFO and I are fortunate that we never had to make that decision for our parents. They died natural deaths without the need for anyone to “pull the plug”. The same can be said for all our cats and dogs, save the dog before Beau and, now, old Beau.
In days long past, before the advent of modern medicine, fewer such decisions were needed for man and beast alike. You lived and then you died when something went terribly wrong. Now we can extend our life spans well beyond the limits of nature, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. And, that’s what makes the deciding that the time has come for death and dying so difficult, whether you make the decision for yourself as Art Buchwald did so elegantly last year, or for another living thing as we now have done for Beau.
“Put down” is a euphemism for euthanasia which, in turn, is a nice word for causing death which is, of course, is the very definition of that old Anglo-Saxon root word, kill, a phonetic development of the word, quell. And, no matter how much spin you put on it, the whole thing boils to a premeditated killing of old Beau.
As a meat eater of long standing, I have come to accept the killing of one animal for the culinary benefit of another. I have no vision of the beef cow from which the T-bone steak on which I am gnawing was so artfully extracted by the butcher at the slaughter house. Likewise, I have no problems with the capital punishment of murderers even though their death is a premeditated homicide. And, I have no moral objections to euthanasia. Indeed, I have a legal document entitled “A Desire to Die a Natural Death” that describes the dire conditions under which someone is requested to “pull the plug” for me in the event I cannot pull it myself. Accordingly, death and dying are not the issue. Rather, it’s the deciding that the time has come for death and dying when they are the means only unto themselves.
The CFO and I are fortunate that we never had to make that decision for our parents. They died natural deaths without the need for anyone to “pull the plug”. The same can be said for all our cats and dogs, save the dog before Beau and, now, old Beau.
In days long past, before the advent of modern medicine, fewer such decisions were needed for man and beast alike. You lived and then you died when something went terribly wrong. Now we can extend our life spans well beyond the limits of nature, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. And, that’s what makes the deciding that the time has come for death and dying so difficult, whether you make the decision for yourself as Art Buchwald did so elegantly last year, or for another living thing as we now have done for Beau.
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