Last Hours

I read an article taken from The Guardian in The Sunday Times today and it disturbed me a great deal. It was a son's account of his mother's last days after she had set a date and time for her own assisted death as she had been diagnosed with cancer. In the Netherlands, it is legal to request for euthanasia if one is terminally ill and this lady had chosen to end her life on her own terms.

While the issue of euthanasia itself is debatable, I was most saddened not by so much by her decision to end her life but by the way she spent her last hours. To know when you are going to die, yet to spend the time worrying about your obituary, the coffin, the flowers and the cleanliness of your home.... I am filled with an inexplicable sadness. What filled this woman's life that she could not spend her last days meaningfully, making peace with her husband and sons, making peace with her Maker, and herself? To spend her last day on earth cleaning the house, clearing the garden, making her family wash the toilets? I feel so so sad for the people she has left behind.

All I can do is say a prayer for this family - for a time of healing, forgiveness and love. And a relationship with God who created us to live lives that are far more meaningful than a clean house.