A yellow flame

Last night, a friend asked me, ‘Have you ever seen a person dying?’

My thoughts immediately went to the pure soul I grew up with. She was a raw embodiment of nature’s anomaly. She was my friend as a child, even though she looked forty. We used to play, banter and watch TV together. She went to a creative school, and I remember being fascinated because I wanted to go too. I would wait for her to get back, and during evenings, we would swing together on the balcony. We would have conversations at length about anything under the sun; stories we grew up with, likes/dislikes, favorite cartoons, our thoughts on the stars above, and what pain meant to us. Even though I was very young, she managed to leave a lasting impression upon me.

She was diagnosed with advanced stage colon cancer. It was as if how she came into this world wasn’t challenging enough. It had metastasized to several vital organs, and it was too late for a possible recovery. When I visited her again after a few months, I couldn’t recognize her. She was a bag of bones. She excreted in an external bag because her kidneys had failed. Her skin and eyes and nails were unbearably yellow because her liver had also started to fail. I’ve never seen a person like that. She looked like breathing dead.

I was absolutely shocked the first time I visited her in the hospital. It took me a few moments to collect myself, and I went to sit beside her. She had her mouth open and a very strained breathing. She was asleep, and the ladies around her would pour some water into her mouth in small intervals. What life is this; waiting for death? Shouldn’t we have the option to respectfully euthanize ourselves if we wish to, especially for the terminally ill? As the days passed by, the breathing became slower and less frequent. We were all gathered around because it was almost her time now. Sometime before dawn, she took her last breath, and her heart stopped. The cancer and her, both were no more. The struggle had ended.

But why did it begin in the first place; her life I mean. She was born with Down’s Syndrome, died with cancer. What then, was the purpose of her life? Perhaps, there is no reason. It just is. Or was it to touch people’s lives around her? So then, is her life not for her own? If in reality, control is an illusion, then we’re all at the mercy of chance. For people who are dealt with a hand of cards worse than others, we have a moral responsibility to give them the option to fold on their own terms respectfully.

From the author: A short personal account ending with my opinion on euthanasia.

Shruti hails from a tropical city in the southern part of India called Chennai, but she grew up shuttling between India and the Middle East. She completed her undergraduation in India, and her master's in Biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University. During those two years, she realized she fell in love with stem cell and developmental biology. Currently, she is in Dr. Prash Rangan's lab studying Drosophila oogenesis and fertility. When she is not working, she loves cooking, painting, reading novels, going on hikes and traveling.