END of LIFE ISSUES

Recently I took a much dreaded trip back East to visit my brother, seriously ill with congestive heart failure. Pretty ominous sounding but treatable, mainly a diet sans sodium. My brother looked awful. Mostly, he had lost so much weight. He knew me, we reminisced, he was pretty weak. I became his caregiver for a couple of days. Helping him get to the bathroom, in and out his wheelchair. Quite the experience. As I sat there the better part of a couple of days, I had go think, "What has brought us to this point?" He's 85, always been incredibly robust. He has been the patriarch of our family, always there for all of us: a retired school superintendent and then into farming. He loved it. 

Our brother has done it all, a Marine on Guadalcanal, school teacher, principal and superintendent. Successful author across genres: He is the challenge man. He has faced them and made them work. 

But, my brother is sick. Health is a challenge that is out of his hands. Time to go? I don't think so. I had come to say goodbye but after being with him for a short time, I'm thinking he can rebound. Returned to his once energetic self. No. A couple of more years with reasonable quality. I think so.

There is always a certain projection with an experience like with my brother: what does this say to me? My brother had no plans to deal with a serious illness. Where to go? Caretakers? What is available? If you are someone like my brother or me for that matter, how can you let your personality get out of the way.i. e., you can say to my brother, how are you? He will teply, "I am great." (his personality--he has always been superman). He is not great and all must recognize it. For myself, should something happen to me, (Well, if I made it to 85, not bad so I could go with it). I would want to be somewhere where people could visit, like VA or some facility. But, my nature is that I would not want anybody interfering with their own schedule. For them to want to "wait" on me would simply add to the issues of my being sick.  I do not want other peoples' lives impacted because of my illness. So what to do? Make plans ahead of time. Write it out. Make sure that plans are in place. Can I do it? Will I do it?