The Laughing Wolf

Trusting Someone With Your Life

This post by Boudicca brought back some memories, some powerful memories of both Mom and Dad, and their passing from this Earth. It also reminds me that anyone can trust someone with their life, but it takes a real man to trust someone with your death.

Yes, there are a number of people I trust with my life. There are those with whom I have shared experiences such that I want them at my side or back in any fight against any foe. There are others who lack the sharing, but who have that same trust in my mind and heart. I know that with them, even should we fall, we will by fire have an honor guard to serve us sent on ahead. There are others, however, that I trust to make the non-death decisions, the decisions that can alter my life, my reality, my plans, and more. I trust them fully on that, and when they point I will march.

Yet, such are the things that any living being can claim. Far harder, and far more important, are the people I trust to kill me.

That is right, kill me. I trust them to end my existence in the same way I did that of my Mother and my Father. When that time comes, I know that they, too, will be beside me, ease my pain, and not stand in the way of my returning to the light. On this, they know my thoughts, for we have discussed it and debated it. If there is no hope, and to continue existence is to mean pain, suffering, and not being able to live, they have the courage and the strength to let me go.

Yet, it goes beyond that. I know that should I ever slip my moorings and start to bring harm to others, they will stop me. While I suspect the English Werewolf might not, I know for fact that the Borzoi would. I just hope that should that dim eventuality appear, that she remembers all I taught her, and make it quick. Then again, given her, she might not and that is indeed a thought I keep in mind. Such does encourage me to stay on the straight and narrow.

Then again, this is nothing new. When I was but a teenager, I had such insurance. A friend and I made solemn vow to end the other if need be. We discussed at length what constituted same, and were in agreement. Those were the dark days, when politician and others said that no life should end, but instead machines were to be used no matter what. While couched in phrases most moral, the fact of the matter was that all made money off the suffering of others. Rather than leave our families saddled with the costs and taxes of same, we each vowed to do what was necessary to end such a state.

The prime choice was to do something accidental, and impossible to charge and prove. Yet if this failed, we each swore to use a 12-guage to good end, and leave nothing for the vultures to “save.”

Dwarf, it has been years since we talked, but oaths still hold. To those who abjure and abhore, frell you. If any of you do-gooders and such insist on keeping my corpse alive, know that if I have earned any credits of favors with this tour, I will trade them in to come back as a squirrel, and make it my mission to head right up your pants leg and settle the account.

Take a moment and do right by your friends and family. Let them know how you feel, and under what circumstances you want heroic measures, and those you do not. Failing to do so is an insult to them, it is failing them, and it is selfish and vain. Don’t’ do that to them. Be a Man, be ye male or female, and make a stand. My friends know, and I know that if bureaucrats of any stripe or type try to interfere, I may yet have friends who will send me on. I sleep much better at night for the knowledge.

LW