Life

The world saw two lives being brought to an end last week. These two people had been sick and ailing for a long time. And their death was never a surprise and was an event in the happening for sometime now. But, the similarity ends there. I am talking about the death of Pope John Paul II and Terri Schiavo.

Last week, I also saw this movie called 'The Sea Inside'. It is based on the true story of a man who was a quadriplegic ( paralyzed from the neck down). He waged a long and unsuccessful legal battle to end his life 'with dignity'. To him , Life without freedom was not life. In the end, he manages to take his life and tells the world that life is a right and never an obligation!

In Terri's case, things were a little different. She remained in a semi-comatose state for many years after her accident. Her husband, Michael Schiavo was the one who made the decision to end her vegetative existence. He opined that Terri would find more peace in her death and thought she would have had done the same thing (if she could have).

The Pope, on the other hand, lived through his life fulfilling his obligations as the guardian of the Roman Catholic Church. His ailments and illness did not keep him from giving up. During the last few years, the Pope appeared frail and weak and Parkinson's seemed to get the better of him. Even during the days of his suffering, when asked about the Terri Schiavo case, he felt that the end of life is a question only in the hands of God. He also believed that death was not something that must be in the hands of politicians or in the hands of physicians, but in the hands of God only.

People see life in different ways! For one, life without freedom is life without dignity. For the other, death offers more peace than a useless life. And for the other, life in itself is never yours. The only thing in your hands is the way you live it.

The relations I see in these deaths might simply be because they happened in the same week. Dont know if any of this makes any sense. Anyways!