Bob Erickson
Sartell
About a dozen states and Canada have passed the “Death with Dignity Act,” (“assisted suicide” as many opponents call it).
My grandfather was a Danish immigrant who settled as a farmer in South Dakota. After marriage, he and his wife had two daughters, one of them my mother Gladys Jensen. Grandpa’s wife died of plague. He married his wife’s sister to help the children. After a year, she also died of plague. He hired a Danish immigrant caretaker whom he later married. He lost the farm in the Great Depression.
Years later, he developed a terminal illness after his third wife died. My mother moved him to Minnesota to care for him, bedridden, far from home and friends. On one of my many visits, he asked “When is the time going to come?”
My sister and I were 6 and 9 when father died.
Now in my 90s, I lost my wife to Alzheimer’s in 2018. It is such a hard job to care for a terminally ill loved one. I do not want a caretaker.
I signed up as an organ donor. I am in excellent condition, mostly. I want to determine when I can most benefit my family and recipients of my organs.
I would then want my urn placed alongside my wife’s, with a message: “Bob is still with us, but in many states.”
When Minnesota passes its “Death with Dignity Act,” it will brighten the light at the end of the tunnel.
