Deciding to Die
Most teens are faced with tough decisions about identity, work, school, career, sexuality, morality, their role in the family and the like. I think it’s easy to devalue the pressure they face daily in the arena of decision making. I recently read about a teenage girl who made a decision most adults are not prepared to make. The decision she faced. To receive treatment or face her death. Her name was Josie Grove and you can read more about her story here. Read. Respond.
I do not want to experience the death of my child. That being said, it sounds like in this situation Josie chose quality of life in a situation where death was inevitable (from her leukemia). There would be a lot of prayer and fasting for me if I were faced with that decision along with my child.
I think anyone in that position has to make a choice. What prepared her was her trials up to that point. Even though a lot of adults wouldn’t be prepared to make that decision, if they had gone through what she had, they would have been as well. I’m not trying to take away from her decision, I’m just saying.
I’m not sure I’d say she, “decided to die.” Turning down highly dubious and trying experiments to enjoy what time you do have left makes sense to me. Her other option wasn’t “to live” so much really.
Modern medicine is amazing and wonderful. I think about the troubles I (and other people I know) would have had had modern medicine not been available. But when it comes to death, when it is imminent like in this girl’s situation, technology makes things messier than it would have otherwise been.