waiting

My Grandmother had a heart attack several weeks ago. While she was in the hospital, the ER doctors discovered she had a gall bladder infection and encouraged my grandma to have surgery to remove her gall bladder. They had to run tests to see if her heart was strong enough to go through surgery, then decided it was. What was supposed to be a minor procedure through her belly button, turned into serious, complicated surgery and she barely made it out of it. The surgery left her in a very weakened condition and she deteriorated quickly. I came to visit her and they had just put in a feeding tube because she wasn't eating or drinking well on her own. They kept trying to make her get out of bed when all she wanted to do was sleep, and it became apparent to us, as her family, that if she was left in the hospital they would take any measure to keep her alive even if it meant artificially sustaining her at 90 years old.

We felt strongly that this was not the kind of life that my Grandma would want to live. My mom and her sisters were placed with the decision to keep her in the hospital or take her home and let her peacefully die. They decided to bring her to my Aunt's house and hospice has come in to help make her as comfortable as possible. I was at my Aunt's house when she arrived, and I honestly didn't think she'd make it through the night. She rallied for a couple of days and was very lucid and peaceful, but for the last week she's been comatose and delirious. The hospice nurse told us that when a person stops drinking water, it typically takes 7-14 days before they pass. As of this morning, it's been 9 days. We had thought her death would come quickly and easily and she would be able to return to my Grandpa and our Heavenly Father and find relief from her aged and handicapped body.

As we've watched her struggle, cry out for help and tirelessly remain at her deathbed day after day or wait anxiously for "the" phone call, I've found myself wishing we could just give her something that would peacefully and quickly help her to go. I struggle with how we as humans will put our pets and other animals "out of their misery" by putting them to sleep or quickly bringing along their death, but we won't for other humans. I think there's a feeling of we don't want to "play God" by speeding along death. It seems morally wrong somehow. But don't we "play God" when we take an egg and a sperm under a microscope and help with the fusion to create life? We will speed up or induce labor to help bring someone into this world. Or we prevent imminent death by a miraculous surgery or drug? Some people don't have a problem with taking the life of a fetus or "embryo". And we will mercifully & swiftly end the life of murderers and the most evil villains of society without letting them suffer. Yet, if we have someone who is in pain and suffering to an imminent death, we will sit by and wait helplessly until they go on their own. Relying on our faith that it's God's Will and His Timing. I'm struggling with this. What are your thoughts?