LP420,
I am glad you posted us today, the above posts have been really great and thought provoking. I don't know if this will help, but I think a lot about "those left behind" because it is so prevalent on member's minds, as we would expect concerning people they care about. But a night or two ago I wrote out my thought about this for another member who was troubled by the same thoughts. As always, it is just my thinking.
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I have thought a lot about "those we leave behind" and I now think that members of this forum are emotionally deep people who care for others, whether they want to be or not. I often thought the same thoughts. However, I have come around to think of things this way. Sure, people left behind us may be sad. or at least we hope they are for our own sake, but in the end two things will happen. First, we will be no longer suffering, at eternal peace, which is what we live for, if you will pardon the expression. Second, those left will have a life somehow, and we should all hope that if their circumstances ever become unbearable to them, that maybe times will have evolved by that time to allow people to choose their own destiny, to live or die, without judgment or ridicule and all people can determine their own life outcome. We want them to understand that life is not fair, it just is life, and if it is insufferable, it just is.
All that to say, many of us burden ourselves with how it will be for those still living, and it is a burden we must no longer carry. Maybe if we think that they can someday determine their own choices, they will respect our choices.
The bottom line is we are the ones living our life, no one else can live it for us 24 hours a day, so self-determination, whatever it is, it is.
Others will eventually reach the point in their own lives where, we hope, they will look back at our lives, and the end of our lives and will then understand that we chose to make ourselves free of pain and suffering,. We hope they will then fully understand how we truly felt and, we hope, they will then respect and fully appreciate the meaning of CHOICE, that we chose. We hope this will cause them to think that they are happy realizing in the moment we left, we no longer suffered. Pain died. Peacefulness set in. And, finally, we hope in that same moment for them, they will completely understand that EVERYONE must be pro-choice in all respects, and our memory will thus be respected. Bottom line.
