I don’t know why this came into my mind this morning. Maybe I was dreaming, maybe it’s just time to write it.

 
What is more important, quality of life, or quantity of life?

 
Most people would say – quality. But what happens when they were faced with the reality. If your husband, wife, mother, father, child were in a coma, had no chance of recovery would you say – “turn off the life support systems”. Using their head thinking, many people would say: “Turn off the support systems, let the person die. They have no quality of life. Without quality, there is no point in living.”

 The reasons for not letting someone go are really quite selfish reasons – I’m not ready to say goodbye to you. I don’t want to live my life without you. So I will make you live, even as a vegetable, even when you have no quality of life -  so I can hang onto my hope. I can see signs of life in you because I want to. I’m not ready to let go. I believe it is wrong for you to die and for me to let you die, so I will not let you go. I am in control of your life. I know what you want.

 The reasons for turning off life support systems are  also be quite selfish – I’m tired of looking after you. I’ve had enough of our life together. I need a break from you. I have no life because of you.

 These decisions are not as much about the person who is dying as those who will be left behind. For all people say, this is the best for my mother/father/daughter, no one can say what is the best for another individual. They can only say what is the best for themselves.

 We see a lot of media stories about people who choose to die; others who stop a family member from dying. Stories about people who are glad they didn’t kill themselves. When outside influences become involved (usually the media and/or right to lifers), then the decision becomes more emotive and difficult for the family. These outside influences have no idea of the reality of the situation for the family who has to make the decision.

 I was lucky. I didn’t have to make that decision for my daughter. However, I did make a no resuscitation order to be put on her file. Was this an easy decision to make? No, it wasn’t. But I believed that my daughter’s body was deciding it was time to die. Did I tell my daughter it was okay for her to go? Yes, I did. Did I, in these two actions, hasten my daughter’s death? I don’t know. Quite possibly. Was it the right decision? Yes, I firmly believe it was the right decision and almost 8 years later, I have no regrets.

 Would I have been able to say: “Turn off the life support” for my daughter. I hope I would. I hope that my own personal grief in losing her would not stop me from doing what seemed to have been the best for her. Susan had no quality of life left. She was sick. She was tired. She was virtually living in the hospital. That is no life for anyone.

 And I hope, that should I be in that situation, that someone will make that decision for me and turn off my life support systems. I do not want my family and friends to live with that level of unrealistic hope that someday, someway a cure will be found. I want my family and friends to accept the reality of my death and to move on in their lives.

 Madeleine

Thursday, 18 May 2006

The Weekly News is running a Mother's Day contest for both Mother's and their kids.

 A. Wallace  (What to do in New York) will be putting out a special mother’s day issue next week and is running a contest on his web page (The Weekly News)

 
General description.
”I will be designing a page devoted to mothers. The winning entry will be featured (in full text and photo, if provided) as the main area. Only the winning entry will be featured in full text and with photo. All others will be text only and readable through hyper link only.

It is more of a contest to allow everyone to acknowledge their mother and let their mom be number one with our readers.”

Entries are still needed. There are still a few days left to enter. Send in your entries now.

 
Madeleine

Monday, 15 May 2006

You might wonder what this photo means.

 I was out in the garden this morning, and in the garden bed, I spotted this:

  Yes, these are some of my socks. I have a drawer full of single socks. I have often wondered why my socks keep disappearing and I am starting to get the idea of what is happening.

 When I come home from work, there are two items of clothing that are removed first. The first one, most women will know without me having to say anything. The second is shoes and, in the winter, socks. Being me, they all just get dropped on the floor. Over the last few weeks, I have found a number of my socks in the garden. Well, when I confront Ally the dawg about it, she hangs her head and lets me know, as only a little black dawg can, that she is the culprit.

 So part of this morning has been doing a sock search in the garden. Only found 2, but I am sure there are more out there.

 I wonder, do socks grow in the garden?

 Does this mean I could have a sock tree in the near future?

 I wonder if you can pick your colour and size from a sock tree?

 What an interesting thought.

 Madeleine

Saturday, 13 May 2006

This has taken me a while to post. Sorry Ross. But here is the post I promised.

I was talking to my DIS (daughter in sin) today and got an blogstream email. I read it, and looked at it again – remembering that I am not as young as I used to be and doing more than one thing at once does tax the old brain a bit. The email was from someone called Ross.

 
Being Blogstream, I was trying to think of who Ross might be. Then I read the first message. It was about a computer question I had asked ages ago. I thought about it, remembered the post. And thought. Okay. Someone has just read that old thing. Went onto the next comment. It was from this same Ross guy. And he said: “I have some digital versions of your mother's slides if you are interested.”
 

Well you could have knocked me down with a feather. The only Ross I know who might have digital versions of my mother’s slides (unless this guy’s a real whacko !!) is my nephew Ross. One of my sister’s sons.

 
So hey Ross. Good to catch up with you. I haven’t seen you since I was taller than you. I’ve seen photos of you, thanks to your mother. I guess one of the last times I would have seen you would have been around 1970 before I came to Australia.

Here he is

Wasn’t he a cutie !!

Ross was 6 and I was 22.

 If Ross wants to say anything else about himself, I will leave that up to him.

Madeleine

Sunday, 5 March 2006

 I have always felt that Mother’s Day is another excuse for the shops to get people to spend money. I remember when my children were younger, a new dishwasher was what one woman wanted. I guess I felt that if I couldn’t be appreciated on other days of the year, don’t bother spending a lot of money on one day, just because it happened to be Mother’s Day.

 I’m not prejudiced. I feel the same about Father’s Day, Christmas, Easter etc. They are meaningless to most people. They are pushed by the shops to get people to spend money.

 Mothering is one of the hardest and most unappreciated professions in the world. And I use the word profession deliberately. Raising the next generation has got to be the most important, responsible job in the world. I believe it is a more important profession than any head of state’s job. They are running the country, yes. But we mothers, are raising the next generation of heads of state.

 No one talks about a career move into becoming a mother. It is always seen as a step down.  It is probably on par with being a sanitary inspector (garbage man). Women say to me regularly “I am just a mother” and I can remember saying exactly the same thing when I was a full time mother. A bit like the couple of sanitary inspector’s I have met. The question “What do you do for a living?” is somehow less than because you don’t earn money. All you do is to sit at home, drink coffee with your friends, watch daytime soapies, and then complain about how hard your day was. And everyone knows just how easy it is to be a mother.

 It is the only job that you are expected to know what to do in every situation, without any training. It is the only job where you are on call 24/7, 365 days a year. I won’t go into the jobs being a mother entails, we have all heard them.

 So appreciate your mothers. Don’t just do it on Mother’s Day. Do something nice for your mother every week. Teach your children to appreciate their mothers weekly. One of the problems I have found with mothers is that they see themselves as less important than the rest of the family. Teach your children how important you are. Treat yourself as important and the rest of the world will treat you as important.

 Let her know what a good job she has done raising you.  But don’t wait til Mother’s day.

 Madeleine

Monday, 8 May 2006

 Joke:

A husband comes home from work and finds his usually well groomed wife sitting in her flannel pj's and slippers, the kids dirty faced and running wild, dirty dishes on the table, newspapers and toys every where, the dog whining to go out and the cat box overflowing. He says "honey, what happened?" She says "Well you know how you are always asking me what I do all day? Today, I didn't do it!" Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!