Death, Loss and the Quality of Life

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. I was hoping to write about how excited I was to be starting a new job at a level I didn’t think I could achieve. Or how excited I was about one of my YouTube videos managed over 1000 views.

I had also hoped to have gotten some new content out on my channel. Keep up the momentum. Now that I’ve actually got followers and an audience, even if it was a small one. I was, am excited.

But days before I start the new job, my nan passed away. This was just over a week ago. I wanted to write about that but it didn’t feel right as my feelings were all over the place about it and I didn’t feel like I was grieving. I just felt frustrated about it.

I reflected on some words a friend said to me. How I grieve is not anyone elses business. I guess that hit me moreso today than any other day. Today was the funeral.

Today I felt sadness, but I also felt that frustration come up again. Look, I will warn you readers now, there’s a lot of venting in here. If you don’t like it, please feel free to shove your opinions up your arsehole where they belong. Push them right up there so I don’t have to see them. There you go.

Life Above Quality of Life

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a death in the family lead to this frustration. It stems from the priority that the healthcare system puts on keeping people alive. Which in itself is from our stupid laws about assisted dying.

We prioritise keeping people alive way above quality of life.

It’s ok that this person isn’t ever going to leave their bed again. That they won’t see the outside again. That their existence is down to barely being able to communicate and needing others to help them with even the most basic of all tasks. As long as they are alive that’s perfectly acceptable.

If it were an animal, sure, let’s put them to sleep because they can’t walk anymore. Or because they are in constant pain. Lets just put them to sleep.

But no, we value life, but don’t give a single shit about whether that person is having a good life. Whether there’s quality left in that life. It is extremely sad to watch people suffer like this.

I don’t know why my focus was on this, and why it seems to always be on this when people pass on in the way that they do. This isn’t how I’d like to go out. I don’t want to be trapped in some assisted living facility, no matter how great the place may claim to be. If I don’t have mobility, have to have someone shower me and feed me, and that it isn’t something that’s going to improve, I wouldn’t want to sit there and wait for death.

Lack of Control

I think that one of the things that bothers me the most about all of this is that when death is around me, it reminds me about how there is such a lack of control about what happens towards the end of your life. You will likely end up in some facility that’s likely not gonna be appropriate for you and then you get to wait for the embrace of death.

Then you have a funeral.

Yay.

Honestly I wanted to go in to the whole side of the facilities involved in nursing homes and funerals really don’t seem appealing, like having a funeral at a church or chapel is really not what I want for myself. But honestly, I’ve run out of energy to keep writing on this piece. Maybe I’ll work on this later.

Everything that’s annoying me today is just that bit extra frustrating today.