Sad Day, This Saturday

Sad day. I went to see The Sea Inside because I've been assigned to write a film review for the Disabilities Studies Quarterly. It's an excellent movie, with a thought-provoking script, lovely cinematography and really solid performances, but I never thought it would upset me as much as it did.

The story follows the end of the life of Ramon Sampedro, the first Spanish man to officially petition the court for permission to legally end his life. Sampedro was a quadriplegic who had lived, he felt, without dignity for almost thirty years. In the end, he got his wish, but only because of the people who loved him and not with the blessing of his country.

Following an accident she had when I was fourteen, my mother has lived for the past nineteen years in a chronic care hospital. The result of a massive brain injury, she can no longer walk or sustain any form of what Sampedro would call a dignified life. At least he had his mind, and could make a rational choice about what he wanted to do with his life; my mother, unable to think rationally, must live in this in-between state, not really alive, but with a body well enough to keep on living. I wish more than anything that she could just tell us what she wants, because I know she would not be happy living in the state she's in, or has been in, for the past two decades.

The movie profoundly affected me, not only because I completely agree with Sampedro and how he needs to be the one to decide his own fate, but also in the fact that I wish I had more dignity in my own life. I wish that I wasn't so selfish and could visit my mother more. I wish that I didn't feel so sad about missing her in my life almost every single day. I wish that there could be an end so that my entire family could still have peace, but I'm afraid that's not going to happen any time soon.

Oh, and then I finished Miriam Toews Swing Low, a memoir written from the perspective of her bipolar father in the few weeks before he takes his own life, again, a quest for dignity, and I just cried and cried. Like I said, sad day. But hey, at least I got one book further along in my 50 Book Challenge.