when the time comes

No matter how much medicine advances, people are going to die in the end.  I think it's pretty important how you're going to die, or rather how you're going to live your last days.  So what if you're unconscious when the time comes?

There are more and more people in Japan who write their will down in some form to tell their family and the medical staff how they want to die.  Many people say they don't want to go through life-prolonging treatment, but still, it is difficult for them to die the way they want.  It's not always easy to figure if it was their true will; maybe they were worried they would only cause trouble if they asked for treatment.  And even if it were the patient's true will, family members may feel obliged to ask for treatment once they actually face the possibility of the patient's death.  Life-prolonging treatment, apparently, gives many families a sense of satisfaction.

An interviewed doctor said he wanted to be confident that natural aging and natural death （人間らしい最期）were things to be valued.  But he had asked for life-prolonging treatment when his own father had had a stroke.  He didn't know what his father wanted.  He still wonders if his decision had been right.  This incident made him realize how important it was for family members to ask the patient (or future patient) how he wanted to die, and for them to be mentally prepared for the death of the patient.

Another doctor had asked his patients to fill in a form but had noticed that some of them transferred to different hospitals and died there.  His new idea was to make a digital data so all hospitals in the area could share the patients' wills and work together to fulfill each patient's wishes.  After having a couple of meetings with other doctors, he improved his original form so that it included parts where the patient could write down what he valued and how he viewed life in general.  Family members can read it and decide what to do when/if the patient became unconscious.  He said it was indeed the way the patient lived his life （生き方） that counted most when they had to decide for the patient.

"It's difficult to figure what the best ending is for each person, but we should always remember that death is an option - it can be the best ending in some scenarios."

Maybe we somtimes place too much emphasis on the state of being alive （生）; I want to say death isn't the end of the world - it's just another part of life.  Still, it's the final part and it is the end of the world.  A world disappears when a person dies.  There's no rehearsing death.  But then again, since when could we rehearse life?  I guess there's only one thing we can do: live like there's no tomorrow.  Then maybe death (either other's or our own) wouldn't be so frightening.