Friday, June 3, 2011

Dr. Death Dies

Today Dr. Death died.  Jack Kevorkian died, apparently quietly and painlessly, this morning at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan.   He was eighty-three years old.
It seems odd that the man who witnessed or assisted over one hundred thirty deaths should die in a hospital and not in his rusty, old Volkswagen van.
I certainly have no idea if, during the time he helped people who were presumably dying die, he sought publicity, believed in a cause, or was simply insane.
However,  he did make people consider the end of a life lived with a terminal illness.
The questions he raised have yet to be answered despite Oregon's laws about the end of life and the choices we have about how we die.
I can't help but wonder if, when he knew he was dying, he didn't yearn for that van and the ability to end his life or if he was thankful his earlier self was no longer capable of hastening the inevitable.

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