Toronto Star: Author Robert Munsch, currently 80 years old, approved for MAID which is medical assistance in dying, intends to go out on his own terms

This wouldn’t be the first time Robert Munsch has been brought up in the brog, as at one time, and I still fully believe, that one of his iconic works, Love You Forever, should come with a trigger warning, because for people like me, it’s impossible to make it through reading the book without breaking down into uncontrollable sobbing.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a marvelously beautiful book, and something that all parents who genuinely love their kids should (attempt to) read to their kids in their lives, but at least for me, it’s moving to the point where even just thinking about it right now has gotten my eyes a little bit watery.

Anyway, I came across the news that up in Canada where he lives, he has been approved for MAID, which for lack of a better term is legal assisted suicide, in the sense that he is being allowed to end his own life.  I mean, it’s a lot of murky area and the details are in the terminology, but the end result is that he is voluntarily ending his own life at his choosing.

Ordinarily, I’ve not minced words how I’ve felt about people in time who have committed suicide, which is that I think it’s a coward’s way out.  But all the details around the news of Munsch’s approved MAID are definitely different, and are kind of like, at least for me, uncharted waters when it comes to thinking about how everything is proposed to go in the near future.

Long story short, Munsch is 80, has both dementia and Parkinson’s and has already witnessed what a slow expiration looks like, seeing his brother succumb to ALS.  If there were ever someone who should get a little grace and understanding of why he might want to be able to go out on his own terms, it’s Munsch.

And the more I think about it, in spite of my general disapproval of suicide in general, I think the idea of MAIDs is substantially different, and despite the fact that both end with the expiration of life, the circumstances, intentions and executions seem different enough to where it’s not nearly as, negatively connoted.

Like in the case of Munsch, I’d hope that in the times where he’s still lucid and sound of mind, he’s been getting affairs in order, got all his legal loose ends tied up, wills, trusts, inheritances, etc.  And if and when his afflictions begin to worsen, and in his own words,

when I start having real trouble talking and communicating. Then I’ll know.

…I imagine things will (hopefully) go rather smoothly, albeit no less tragic and devastating at the sheer reality that a life will be ending.

However, here’s the one thing that I do still find a little bit concerning about MAIDs:

He said a date has not been set yet, but he has to choose while he can still actively consent.

Like, how does anyone choose a date in which they voluntarily end their own life?  As progressively compassionate the potential of MAIDs provide, it still seems a little short-sighted and rigid to make a person set a date.  Maybe I’m missing something here, but I feel like this is probably more likely to be a game-time decision, or something very close to it, and not necessarily something that a person has to lock in, weeks, months or even years in advance.

As I said, there’s so much gray area and so many hypotheticals, that way smarter people, and actual legal ones at that, have probably presented the whole idea of MAIDs in the first place as legally tight as they can make it, regardless of the subject matter of the whole concept.

On the flip side, there seems to be potential for a person on their way out to have an unprecedented farewell tour, to life, and it be completely legal, or at least without any personnel trying to stop you.  Hopefully, Munsch and his family have a bucket list of things that they want to experience and accomplish, and it not be too complicated if and when the inevitable proposed go-time approaches.

The bottom line is that as sad as the whole thing is on account of the main thing being the expiration of a life, in this particular instance, I can’t say that I blame Robert Munsch for going in this direction.  I know that if my mind were going, and I couldn’t remember my kids, my wife or my family, and my body were deteriorating to where I was falling regularly, I’d begin to think that maybe I’ve had a pretty full-ass life, and perhaps it would be best for all parties involved that I left the party and everyone else could exhale and move on with their lives without me and all my burdens putting everyone’s lives on hold.

However, I will say that when thinking about the song from I Love You Forever:

I’ll love you forever
I’ll like you for always
As long as I’m living
My baby you’ll be

That third line, as long as I’m living, is something that I don’t necessarily agree with, because I like to believe that even after I kick it, whatever afterlife or aether where my soul or essence of life that might be swirling around somewhere, the love for my kids will still be around, and as I tell my girls regularly, they’ll always be my babies.

And with that, I have to wrap up this post, lest I be reduced to full on start sobbing about this sad topic.