Hook (No Resuscitation Please)

               

I was scanning the cable television for something to watch and I stumbled upon the film “Hook” which starred Robin Williams as “Peter Pan.”  I’ve watched this movie countless of times before but now it takes on a different meaning that Robin Williams has passed away in 2014.  At the end of the movie, Wendy was telling Peter Pan that this is the end of your adventures in which Peter Pan replied “To life is   the start of one’s adventure.” How ironic it is for someone with such great talent and to end his life by committing suicide due to his deteriorating mental and physical condition.  Peter Pan did not want to grow old since growing old means death.

                While watching the movie I began to ponder on my own life situation that a few months ago I turned 50 and things get a little crazy when one gets to my age.  The first thing that comes into mind is a sense of one’s mortality.  At 20 you have your whole life ahead of you, at 30 it would be the best times of your life, life begins at 40 they say but at 50 you begin to wonder how many days, months or years I have till I sing “I Did It My Way.” Will I be like my parents who have reached their golden age that they now require special care by their loved ones?  Or will I go like some of my contemporaries gone too soon and so sudden. One will really never know when one’s story will end what is important is that one takes life a day at a time and as they say “To live is that start of one’s adventure.”

                There’s one instruction that I often tell my wife and the other members of my family. That in the event of a medical emergency when I am no longer capable of making a sound decision regarding my medical condition please instruct the doctors that I refuse to be given any life inducing drugs nor the use of any medical equipment that would prolong my life unnecessarily. In the event that my heart naturally stops beating there will be no resuscitation that would be done for I chose to die with dignity.