It’s been an introspective week, monitoring my stress levels and emotional energy and seeing where I’m at, really. Looking at that last entry, I’m baffled at the strength of my rage over that image. It’s certainly infuriating, and something I feel very strongly about, but the instant passion of my anger isn’t something that’s happened before. Looking at it now, it angers me, but it’s nowhere near the level of pissing me off that it was before. I don’t fully understand why it affected me so strongly, so instantly, and so darkly.
Something for my therapist and I to work on.
Today I found a link on my Facebook feed to a blog post about my friend with ALS who chose to end her life. It is a photographer who connected with her and documented the end of her life, the days leading up to and the actual end. Llewellyn Gannon’s photographs are beautiful, personal, and intimate. Her story gave me closure I didn’t have before, to know exactly how things happened, something more than a final farewell post from my friend on Facebook.
She chose to die surrounded by her loved ones on a beautiful April afternoon. I can’t think of a better way to tell her story, and to show why Death with Dignity is so important, than Llewellyn already has with her pictures and her words. So I will simply link it here, and warn you that there is death, and beauty, and nakedness, and fragility, and love, and power in these images. Proceed with an open heart.
http://www.llewellyngannon.com/she-had-the-right-to-die-1/
Thank you, Sherrie, for showing me the way, and thank you, Llewellyn, for your art and your love and your generosity.