A choice most cruel
What would you do
if you sat hour upon hour, day upon day,
beside the bed of one who begged you to find
an end to their misery and unending pain, but faith
and law were united, and mercy was overwhelmed?
If reason demands but law proscribes compassion,
and faith enjoins that God, the giver of life, alone
may take the broken body and failing spirit
to eternal rest, could you, would you
assist the loved one to die?
If all you are able to do
is to pray, will you ask God to ease
the terrible burden of exhaustion and fear
the dying so often carry and, with a gentle dignity
and calm at last, to allow them to silently slip away?
How then would you feel? Joy at the end of their
torturous journey or deep sadness that, at the
time of their choosing, there was neither
means nor courage to walk with them
to the edge of the abyss?
If reason and law and faith in a merciful
God were to combine, then might we, as an act
of pure love, say yes to the pleas of the loved one,
and so go with them in peace to the gate
of the Kingdom of Love?
Amen. So may it be.
Naomi
