Help Should I take my cat when I cross?Your opinion?

[hell toupee]

Dear hell toupee:
I offer you my deepest condolences for your losses, both your wife and your health. The ancient Stoic philosophers said we cannot know the future, but it is more likely to be worse than otherwise. As usual they were right!

I thank you also for reaffirming my sanity. You can only take so much and your mind begins to lose its elasticity; your thinking becomes alien to your normal nature and you begin to doubt yourself.

I have always been more intellectual than physical and I never saw myself as particularly strong. I always felt when the going got tough I'd be most likely to hide under the table. But there is no table to hide under and everything is up to me. Is this, my final act, designed to prove I had what I always doubted I had? (God could have just left a note on my voicemail. I would have believed Him; I didn't need proof!)

When my last relative passed away five years ago I knew I had to make plans for the future, because there wouldn't be anyone to watch out for me.

The choice comes down to length of life vs quality of life. The Stoics argued for quality of life and cautioned against the frailty and indignity of a life lived too long. Nor did they see anything wrong with choosing to end your life if Fate began abusing you too much. They said Nature was generous because it allows us only one way into life but many ways out.

I cared for several of my older relatives over the years and we were always there for them to the very end; no nursing homes ever. But there would be no one there for me. And I have visited other people in nursing homes and it gave me absolute chills!

So I chose to go out on my feet with my boots on which meant finding an acceptable way to make a dignified exit. As we know there are few "good" ways to go. Eventually I chose NI since it was the least violent and if it fails they're are no long term effects.

I have had it for some time so I have taken delivery of testing equipment to make sure it is still viable.

I have read and watched hundreds of hours on life after death and I really believe there is a wonderful life after this one. Even so I resonate with Woody Allen's quip, "I'm not afraid of dying; I just don't want to be there when it happens". It's the fear of the unknown. Our brains HATE the unknown. "Lord I believe; help thou mine unbelief."

So I take it one shakey step at a time, and I try to remember at 73 I am flying home anyway, and I will be much better off the sooner I get there. And if everything I have learned is true, Paradise and all those I have ever loved are only a breath away.

And I better get away before I really do crumble! For over 60 years I maintained the exact same weight +/- 8 pounds, but I have lost 30 pounds in the last three months! I cannot eat except perhaps a can of soup a day and only after a taking a 1mg Xanax.

If I am here to learn yet one more life lesson, I will take an "F"; I'm going home.

Thank you for the kind words Sam.

I too have watched a lot of NDE testimonials. I have an article that you might find interesting - it is a summary of what happens after we die. If you are more of a cerebral type person, I think you will come to appreciate what is being said.

Just after my wife died, I had several very strange occurrences that went beyond just mere coincidence and literally blew my mind. This led me to those NDE testimonials, and eventually the aforementioned article.

I am not a religious person and never have been - but what I read literally changed my view on a lot of things, as it seems to perfectly explain why NDEs are so varied.

If you have a few minutes, I urge you to read it - it is attached to this post as a PDF file. Let me know what you think.

EDIT: I will add that there was a big article on Yahoo yesterday about the fact that scientists had discovered that gamma wave activity in the brain did not stop upon clinical death (title of the article was something like "Scientists discover consciousness does not end with clinical death" or something like that. If you read the paper I attached, it perfectly aligns with this revelation.

 

[Galam]

I am happy that I don't have any pets I need to care for. It is a hard situation to kill a pet before CTB but I think it is better than letting the pet starve or abandone it. Since last year I wished to have a BKH (britisch kurzhaar) cat and I choose to not do this, because I cannot give her a good life here and I think she would be sad when I die before her. And I would be sad if she dies before me or she gets sick and dies painful or someone stole her from me and abuses her for money. Similar with children, I am anti-breeder.