The Good Death
by F.A.
O Herr, giels jedem seinen eigenen Tod.
Oh Lord, give unto each a suitable death.
-Rainer Maria Rilke, “Das Shinden-Buch” (The Book of Hours)
Euthanasia[1] means “good death,” from the ancient Greek eu meaning good, and thanatos meaning death. Ironically, society uses this term to define that manner of death which it forbids. Voluntary assisted death is viewed with repugnance by politicians, by the vast web of hospitals and old age homes that profit by our slow decline, and by pharmaceutical companies which stand most to gain during the last three weeks of a terminally ill patient’s life.
Periodically, debates flare up about “the right to die,” as though dying were an optional procedure. We are assured of our deaths; what we should fight for is the right to die in the time and manner of our choosing, for the right to have competent, compassionate assistance in the process, for the right to have our choice acknowledged and respected. Our involuntary births are surrounded by caring friends, applauded by society, acknowledged by all. Involuntary deaths are granted a fraction of this attention — our bodies hustled off to a mortuary as though the presence of the dead were somehow shameful, an unwelcome reminder of our own mortality — and voluntary deaths are shunned and reviled. Because of severe legal consequences upon those who would help us die, we have little choice but to sneak away as though dying were a shameful act, forced to leave in secrecy and loneliness; and so good deaths are made difficult by a law that has no goodness in it.
To me, dying is a ritual which I hope to perform rightly when the time comes: as I try to live mindfully, so I will try one day to die mindfully, in reverence for the process. Lydia Helasdottir has remarked that “Hela is at the end of all roads”; and when I see Her at the end of my road, I would walk toward Her in joy and worship, rather than cringe away. Unfortunately, I shall have to walk alone. At least I shall bring to Hela, and to Sigyn and Loki, the Gods that own me, a conscious being who chose to go to Them, a mind that can still remember Them, a heart that is still strong enough to love Them. People who live past their time often lose both: the body takes over in cruel dominion, and that which is urgent takes precedence over that which is essential. Little by little the main concern becomes the next meal, the next bowel movement, the next morphine injection, the next breath…
Voluntary death will inevitably bring with it a moment of panic, for the body does not know how to die. We have to accept this as part of the ritual, and prepare our minds and souls for this to happen, in the full knowledge of when it does happen, we shall be alone to deal with it. We who may ask for help with our careers, our marriages, our mortgages — all the things that may or may not happen — are forbidden to ask for help with that which surely will happen to us all.
The concept of voluntary deaths is inseparably joined in my mind to the concept of sacrifice in the religious sense of the word: sacer facio, meaning “to make holy.” In Dying For The Gods, Miranda Althouse Green[2] points out that “…Technically, the most valuable gift to the gods was self-sacrifice, but if that meant self-destruction, it would of course prevent the sacrifice from deriving personal benefit from the offering … the sacrifice of self is untenable, so something must be substituted for the sacrificer.” This however only holds if sacrifice is offered in a do ut des (“I give so that You may give,”) frame of mind, not if it occurs as a true gift, freely given. As I give my life to my Gods, so I shall one day give Them the only death I have the unassailable right to cause: my own. And because I do not wish my last act to bring trouble on anyone, I shall have to be priest as well as sacrifice, and perform this rite as best I can.
Hela, Lady Death,
You Who turn no one from Your realm,
Forgive me for not helping those I love
In their journey toward You
As I forgive those who will not help me come to You,
For we belong to that terrible species
Which denies to each one of us
The last right, the last succor, the last comfort.
Hela, Lady Death, of Your kindness,
Accompany us in the last hour of our need,
And in our final loneliness.
[1] I am well aware that for legal purposes it is necessary to distinguish between “assisted suicide” in which someone assists a human being in killing him/herself, and “euthanasia” in which someone actively kills a patient (a quadriplegic, for instance) who is unable to kill her/himself at the patient’s request. For religious purposes however, there is no distinction between these two deaths: both are mindful, voluntary and good. Suicide committed in anger, on impulse, or as an act of spite toward survivors (“they’ll be sorry they treated me this way!”) obviously is not a good death, and therefore is unworthy of any help.
[2] “Dying for the Gods; human sacrifice in the Iron Age and Roman Europe.” Miranda Althouse Green, Tempus Publishing Inc, Gloucestershire, UK 2002, pg. 28.
