Yesterday Brittany Maynard chose to take her life as she faced a terminal form of brain cancer.  Lot’s of controversy regarding this.  She moved to Oregon because the state supports a person being able to take their own life in these situations.  The state supports self-assisted suicide.

My wife, rest her soul, fought through three years of an aggressive form of breast cancer that spread to her brain, lungs, spine and bone.  The brain caused very painful moments.  The lungs caused problems with spastic coughs. The spine cause walking/balance issues and even affected her ability to swallow.  She fought every day until the end.

The question on my mind was why did these two  strong women decide to end their lives in such different ways.  To be blunt, one chose to fight and the other chose not to.  If I had to guess, and these are only guesses, it is because of the following:

• Age:  Brittany was 29 and Margie was 40.  There is a bit of wisdom difference between the two.
• Children:  Margie had two children, one being 3 weeks old when she was first diagnosed.  Brittany didn’t have children.
• Religion:  I’m not sure of where Brittany’s faith aligned to.  Margie was Catholic.

I’ve said this before, I support that Brittany had the right to choose but I don’t support the choice that she made.  My vantage point is 10+ years older than hers and with two small children.  And when the vantage point is that different I don’t think I can make sense of her choice.  But I do want to try and make sense of the differences and how they impact our choices.

Their views about the fight for cancer seemed to be different.  Brittany’s view was this is going to kill me so I want to control it before it gets bad.  Margie’s view was to do everything she could to fight it, she knew that eventually she was going to pass but that didn’t matter.  She was going to fight it and face all that it threw at her so she could have every last moment with her kids.  She put the kids and others first and not herself.  <— That is what troubles me with all of this.  When you boil all of this down and strip away all of the noise, you get to one simple statement:  One lady chose to fight and one lady chose not to.

All of this reverence for Brittany and “her courage to choose”.  Bless Brittany, I won’t speak ill of her as she has passed.  But revere the ladies who chose and choose to fight.  The strong men and women who  stand up, look a horrible disease/illness in the face and choose to fight it at all costs.  Not because they are going to win, but because the fight is worth fighting.  My wife was fighter and she gave every ounce of energy and she is the bravest woman I have ever known.