Question 18:
Do you wish to join the One-Month-Less Club?
The One-Month-Less Club has a completely open membership.
You become a
member simply by declaring
your membership.
There are no
meetings to attend and no dues to pay.
We are the people
who have decided to live so
well
during the years
of our lives when we are in good health
that we will not
miss the last month in the hospital,
which would be the
normal way to end our days
if we acquiesced
to standard medical care.
If we want to select the best times for our individual deaths,
we will avoid both
dying too soon and dying too late.
While we are in
the midst of life, we cannot decide the best time.
But if we begin to
imagine making such a decision for ourselves,
we will prepare
our minds for putting our philosophy into action.
Here is a thought experiment that might be helpful:
Think of someone
you knew well who has been dead for 10 years or more.
(Ten years might
be needed to get proper perspective on that life.)
Did this person
die too soon or too late? (Or at the right
time?)
Whatever the
particular circumstances of a specific death,
we can at least
imagine deaths that were premature
and deaths that
were prolonged beyond
benefit to anyone.
Perhaps age 50 should be a membership requirement
for joining the
One-Month-Less Club.
Up to that age, we
will probably worry about dying
too soon.
But we might join
the One-Month-Less Club
when we worry more
about prolonged dying
than premature death.
As the 21st
century unfolds, advances in medical science might make
prolonged dying more common
than premature death.
Here's another way to think of that one month less:
Have you ever been
very sick for a month?
Have you been in
the hospital for a week or more?
If you had the
option of omitting
that time in the hospital
from your life,
what would you have lost?
Perhaps the only
good result you can specify
from such a time
in the hospital is that it enabled you to survive.
You exist now because you went thru
that traumatic period then.
But of all the
months of your life,
that month of
suffering is the one you would not have missed.
And if that worst
month of your life had been magically omitted,
your life would be
none the worse for that omission.
150
YOUR LAST YEAR: CREATING YOUR ADVANCE DIRECTIVE FOR MEDICAL CARE
If you agree that little would have been lost
from your life
if you had been
able to omit the worst month,
you will be open
to the idea of omitting the last
month of your life
since your last
month might be the worst month of your life.
And in the
memories of those who survive you, ten years later
your last month
might not be regarded as a meaningful period.
Admittedly, it will be difficult to determine
just when the last
month of your life is beginning.
But if it ever
does become clear in your case, then what should happen?
Do you want to
suffer thru that last month of life?
Or would you
prefer to have your suffering shortened?
What do the people
who care about you think about such a choice?
If the last month comes upon you sooner than you had planned,
you might easily
decide to endure a certain amount of suffering
if the additional
days allow you to accomplish something important
—something you
need to do before you die.
And when you find
the sand in your hour-glass almost gone,
that might be the
time to pursue that much-postponed project.
And if you are still conscious and capable,
you will have
every right to postpone
your death
because you are
still able to pursue meaningful
activities,
thoughts, feelings, relationships, etc.
At the end of your
life, each additional day might seem infinitely valuable.
But if you have lived well
during the healthy years of your life,
when the time
comes to die, you might be completely ready.
If others are
inspired by your way of planning for your death,
they might also
consider joining the One-Month-Less Club.
And they will
support your choice to draw your life to a close
at what you regard as the best time and the best means,
rather than
drawing out the process as long as the doctors
can try one more
treatment that might add a few days to your life.
You will certainly seek the best medical advice you can get
about the likely
length and quality of your life.
And you will
remember that such projections can always be wrong.
But if you know
the most likely signs to watch for
—that mark the
beginning of the inevitable end—
then you know you
are approaching the natural end of your life.
This is the final
illness. You will not survive it.
So then the
question becomes:
Which pathway leading to
death do you wish to follow?
QUESTION
18:
ONE-MONTH-LESS
CLUB
by JAMES
PARK
151
If you have decided in advance to take a short-cut to death,
you can explain
that choice in this portion of your Advance Directive.
If you are still
capable of deciding at that time,
you can choose exactly when to 'pull the
plug' yourself.
And if you can no
longer decide, your proxies need to know when to pull it.
Your proxies will
know when to 'call it quits' for you
by reading your
Answer to the previous Question:
"Under what
conditions would you request death?"
And this Question
about the One-Month-Less Club
allows you to give
more thought to the timing
of your death.
Your moral
permission will help your proxies decide when to end your life.
Does your medical ethics include
choosing a timely death?
There is no maximum membership limit for the One-Month-Less Club.
As the decades of
the 21st century go by, more people are likely to join.
And it will become
more socially acceptable to plan our own deaths
—deciding the best
time, the best place, & the best means.
The 2-1/2 pages
above is the complete text of this Question 18.
To see how this Question fits into the whole book,
go to the table of contents: Your
Last
Year:
Creating Your Own Advance Directive for Medical Care.
If you would like to see how one person answers this Question,
go to James
Park's Advance Directive for Medical Care.
Scroll down to Answer 18.
James Park is the founder of the One-Month-Less Club.