The Pope and Terri Schiavo

I think you can tell a lot from a person by the way they face death. Although I'm not a Catholic, I must say that I am impressed with the way the Pope appears to be facing death. Of course, we don't have a lot of visibility into this, but I think the fact that he prefers to die at home rather than in a hospital says a lot. It says he'd rather go quietly into death among the things that he loves rather than try to cling to every last bit of life that he can. It says that he's not afraid to die, but is willing to meet it rather than try to run away from it.

I can't help but contrast this with the fiasco surrounding Terri Schiavo's death. Of course, this is no reflection on Terri because she had no role in her own death, except perhaps in allegedly having told her husband at one point that she doesn't want to be kept alive artificially, and I'm not sure what it says about her parents or her husband. As a parent myself, I can sympathise with her parents. I think it's much harder to face the death of a one of your children than it is to face your own death. As a parent, I can see how it must be all but impossible to willingly give up on trying to save your child's life. I can also sympathise with her husband. As grieved as he must have been when his wife went into a coma, 15 years is a long time to grieve for someone, and to go without someone else in your life. At some point, your going to want to get on with your own life, find someone new, and marry them. Terri's parents at least have each other.

(Yes, I'm aware that he didn't wait 15 years, but I don't know how long he did wait. I'm assuming that however long it was, it was a decent amount of time. If it wasn't, I don't really care. I'm not reflecting on this particular situation so much as this type of situation in general.)

Anyway, I don't have any answers here, only questions. It's something I've been thinking a lot about lately.