So You Want An AMD...

Sitting in the playground with mom at 10pm last night after watching The Amazing Race 10 and she suddenly said: I want to do an AMD.

AMD, for those who don't know, is Advanced Medical Directive (the colder definition of a living will) - basically a form which one fills in and signs, witnessed by a doctor and neutral party to say something like: let me die in peace and dignity without tubes and needles hanging out of me.

Mom and I are no stranger to discussions like this - which is something else I love about her. Unlike other senior citizens (hah! she'd whack me if she read me calling her this!) she is not averse to discussing death issues. We've spoken about cremation, what to do with the ashes etc. In any case, as she continued last night, you already know what I want even without an AMD right?

I say yes mom, I do, but I don't want to fight my sibs in case things go very emotional. I don't want to have to fight them off over the switch, know what i mean? So maybe an AMD is not a bad idea.

But people still struggle with this and for us Catholics, there are other issues to consider. Better get the theology of this right, I say. We argue rather amiably on the right and wrong of it. Very interesting - where do we get off saying when we want to time? When is time really time? Is all intervention to extend life wrong then? What about kidney dialysis? Even meds for hypertension? The continuum to better life and better health and hence longer life is a long one and ranges, at one end from the simple vitamin to, at the other end, money-intensive stem cell research and treatment. We humans look for any way to extend and improve our mortality. At what cost?

The AMD sits on this continuum. At very micro levels, we have our personal decisions to make. But on the macro level, what we do affects and vice versa. And at those macro levels, the politics of money and big business pollute the picture even further.

My discussion with mom came full circle when KH and the kids arrived. They greeted their grandma boisterously and hit the playground - yes past 10pm at night. Sitting there with mom, our conversation turned to other stuff - plans for Italy etc.

But taking a bird's eye view as we sit there, surrounded by the children, I don't want to think of the day when mom would no longer be around - that is a painful thought. But I know it will come and I dread the day when it does.

AMD or not, if I have to be the one to flick the switch and sit with her as she goes, I guess I will because she counts on me to do this and I'll just have to do my best not to let her down. That's the way it has been all our lives so why should it be different at the very end?