March 11th.
I have a first cousin who doesnt have much longer to live. Most likely just a few days, if that.
Late summer or early fall he had an ear and sinus infection that he could not get rid of. He finally ended up in a hospital over it, they got it under control and released him. Not too long ago he was sick again, went to a doctor, who sent him to a hospital. He had double pneumonia. They were able to get that under control, but they took a chest xray as part of this diagnosis, and found a spot on one of his lungs.
It was very close to his heart, apparently, so close that the surgeon did not want to take a biopsy. So they did the surgery, with the idea that they'd remove the tumor, or the whole lung if needed. Turned out they didn't do either. During the surgery they decided it was inoperable, and I guess untreatable. I was told the tumor was attached to his heart in some way, as well as his lung.
This all happened very rapidly, at least from my point of view, but of course lung cancer doesnt happen overnight. He smoked, which is a risk, and he worked on strip mines, mining coal, another risk.
March 18th.
I started this post about a week ago, and my cousin died the next day. I think his cancer was diagnosed less than a month before his death. He was very sick, but also very aware. He knew he had a very short time to live.
He spent most of the last three weeks at his home. He moved into a hospice facility in Hazard, Kentucky literally a couple days before he died. Once they found out it was terminal they managed his symptoms, but did nothing further to treat the disease. He died late in the evening of March 12th.
I don't know what I'd do in that situation. It seems he handled it about as well as anyone facing certain death can. Well let me amend that a little. We're all facing certain death, but most of us are not facing immanent death. He was, and he knew it. I don't know how I'd react. How can anyone react. If you are literally deathly ill, you aren't going to do a whole lot. If I were able, I think I'd just sit out on the porch and feel the air and listen to the birds.
On television people with chronic or even terminal illnesses take yoga classes and play tennis, and seem to be healthier and more active than the rest of us. Reality is a little different.
He had a lot of family and friends, and most, including me, attended the funeral. It was held in Hindman with bluegrass/gospel music and a sermon. It was a very long procession to the cemetery. He was buried in the family cemetery near his home, the graveside service coinciding with a very heavy downpour, soaking most people there. He would have laughed, everybody knew it, and they all laughed about it. He was buried next to his (and my) grandparents who raised him, and who he thought of as parents.
Showing posts with label Death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Death. Show all posts
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Snowchief
I hate it when pets drastically alter their habits, it's frequently not a good sign. About a month ago, Snowchief moved into the kitchen - more specifically into the dark cabinets under the sink. He made a comfy place for him on a little shelf next to a bag of unions. Patti moved the onions & moved out all the cleaning supplies, kept the area clean & I moved the litter box down to the kitchen. A kitchen is really not a good place for a litter box, but we didn't think Snowchief would be able to make it to where we normally kept it. So we brought it downstairs, and put it just a few feet from where he began spending most of his time. He didn't seek out the sun anymore.
He ate, drank, used the litter box, slept and got weaker and weaker. He vomited a lot. He was loosing weight, losing patches of hair and was developing scabs on his back. He was having trouble walking and one of his eyes did not look right, it looked cloudy. We think he was in pain, but who really knows. He seemed to be losing control of bodily functions. It was obvious he wasn't going to live much longer. We felt he was suffering & rather than let that continue we took him to the vet so it would end peacefully and painlessly. We're both very sad about it.
Snowchief was a cat of course, and much of what he did was instinct. He had no idea what was happening to him, he didn't know he was old or sick. He had no conception of death (even though he'd killed enough mice in his time), and probably not even life. Snowchief had been taken care of all his life, and had no idea that he was a lucky cat. He was an animal, and he lived in the present, and had no knowledge of any different possibilities.
I was working for Electronic Data Systems at the GM Plant in Baltimore when the account admin brought in some 8 week old kittens that had been born under her deck. That was the spring of 1992, the kitten that became Snowchief fit in he palm of my hand. He grew to be a bigger than average cat.
I hate it when pets get old and die. But if you have one long enough, that's what happens.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Death Penalty Part 2
Put this in the co-incidence file.
Last weekend we took a quick trip to Kentucky (over and up, as European oriented maps go) and while there I picked up a copy of my father's Lexington Herald.
For some reason the Lexington Herald has replaced the Louisville Courier-Journal as the paper of choice - I don't see how either of them get to Knott County in time for morning delivery, but that's a whole other post.
Anyway, on the front page of the Lexington Herald was a headline that a judge had halted the scheduled execution (scheduled for today), of a person who was going to be executed with the last dose available in the whole state of one of the drugs used for lethal injections. Two other people were given temporary reprieves. I wrote a post last week, in which I think I remarked on how arbitrary it seemed, and what a general bummer it would be to be the last person executed before executions were halted for awhile.
The judge halted the execution because the "protocol" for executions did not match state law. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I think it means that their Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) manual for lethal injections needs to be updated. Specifically mentioned in the article was how to handle condemned inmates who may be pregnant, and how to determine who may be mentally retarded, or criminally insane. In Kentucky, it is, in theory, illegal to execute a mentally retarded person, tho prosecutors seem to go to great lengths (from what I read) to not allow tests to prove someone is or isn't retarded. Apparently the reality of how these types of inmates are handled is not matching state law.
So the conviction was not over turned, the sentence was not changed, it was just halted until the state crosses it's T's and dots its I's. (Lower case I's, of course).
Gregory Wilson was scheduled to die today. He was convicted of a terrible crime, involving a rape and murder in Northern Kentucky back in 1987. He had an accomplice who was female, and she is serving a life term.
Same crime, different sentences - part of what I consider the arbitrariness and capriciousness of it all.
I don't think I'd want to know these people, especially not the people they were back in 1987, and I doubt that 23 years of prison has done anything to help their disposition. I don't know. But I'd feel perfectly safe if people like Gregory Wilson had life sentences, without parole, in some high security prison. If they're guilty, put them in a cell and throw away the key, I really don't have much sympathy.
What bothers me though, is that mistakes have been made, and occasionally, a totally innocent person is executed. It has happened, and it will happen again. Gender, quality of legal representation, race, wealth, all sorts of things play into who is sentenced to death and who isn't, things that have nothing to do with the law or the crime committed.
Early in my school years - very early - I remember being taught the principle that it was better that "10 guilty persons escape, rather than 1 innocent person suffer". I looked it up because I could not remember who said that - it was William Blackstone in the 1760s, and the principle is ultimately biblical in origin. I think that principle has been turned on its head these days. A small number of people who drive cars will die in car accidents, everybody knows that, but still consider driving an acceptable and even necessary risk. I think it's the same attitude states with the death penalty have - they know it's possible an innocent person may occasionally be executed, but they consider that an acceptable risk for society as a whole.
Well what about the victims? If a family member or someone you know is murdered, you want someone arrested and imprisoned for that. But what if you had nothing to do with it, but you were arrested and convicted on circumstantial evidence? Because you had opportunity, perhaps a motive could be construed, what if you were in a certain place at a certain time, made phone calls at a certain time, who knows? What if an eye witness says they saw you somewhere, and you don't know what they're talking about because you were never there? Or you were there the day before & they got their dates mixed up? I don't know how often things like this happen, but it's certainly possible.
I walk ol' Pickles thru a grassy patch between some railroad tracks and some woods most days. What if one day a dead body turned up there, and one of the construction workers working on the new city hall across the road said they saw a tall goofy looking guy with a ticked-up almost hound dog walking out of there? Next thing I know I'd be talking the local Barney Pfife & who knows what would happen.
It's a stretch, I know. But I want all those T's and I's crossed and dotted. Too often they arent. People get really upset when someone is acquitted on a "technicality". I'm glad those technicalities are there. They're called laws, .
I don't know where I'm going with this. I don't want dangerous criminals in society, there's enough walking around already. But people are not infallible, life is full of random events and co-incidences and I'm uncomfortable with the death penalty.
Last weekend we took a quick trip to Kentucky (over and up, as European oriented maps go) and while there I picked up a copy of my father's Lexington Herald.
For some reason the Lexington Herald has replaced the Louisville Courier-Journal as the paper of choice - I don't see how either of them get to Knott County in time for morning delivery, but that's a whole other post.
Anyway, on the front page of the Lexington Herald was a headline that a judge had halted the scheduled execution (scheduled for today), of a person who was going to be executed with the last dose available in the whole state of one of the drugs used for lethal injections. Two other people were given temporary reprieves. I wrote a post last week, in which I think I remarked on how arbitrary it seemed, and what a general bummer it would be to be the last person executed before executions were halted for awhile.
The judge halted the execution because the "protocol" for executions did not match state law. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I think it means that their Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) manual for lethal injections needs to be updated. Specifically mentioned in the article was how to handle condemned inmates who may be pregnant, and how to determine who may be mentally retarded, or criminally insane. In Kentucky, it is, in theory, illegal to execute a mentally retarded person, tho prosecutors seem to go to great lengths (from what I read) to not allow tests to prove someone is or isn't retarded. Apparently the reality of how these types of inmates are handled is not matching state law.
So the conviction was not over turned, the sentence was not changed, it was just halted until the state crosses it's T's and dots its I's. (Lower case I's, of course).
Gregory Wilson was scheduled to die today. He was convicted of a terrible crime, involving a rape and murder in Northern Kentucky back in 1987. He had an accomplice who was female, and she is serving a life term.
Same crime, different sentences - part of what I consider the arbitrariness and capriciousness of it all.
I don't think I'd want to know these people, especially not the people they were back in 1987, and I doubt that 23 years of prison has done anything to help their disposition. I don't know. But I'd feel perfectly safe if people like Gregory Wilson had life sentences, without parole, in some high security prison. If they're guilty, put them in a cell and throw away the key, I really don't have much sympathy.
What bothers me though, is that mistakes have been made, and occasionally, a totally innocent person is executed. It has happened, and it will happen again. Gender, quality of legal representation, race, wealth, all sorts of things play into who is sentenced to death and who isn't, things that have nothing to do with the law or the crime committed.
Early in my school years - very early - I remember being taught the principle that it was better that "10 guilty persons escape, rather than 1 innocent person suffer". I looked it up because I could not remember who said that - it was William Blackstone in the 1760s, and the principle is ultimately biblical in origin. I think that principle has been turned on its head these days. A small number of people who drive cars will die in car accidents, everybody knows that, but still consider driving an acceptable and even necessary risk. I think it's the same attitude states with the death penalty have - they know it's possible an innocent person may occasionally be executed, but they consider that an acceptable risk for society as a whole.
Well what about the victims? If a family member or someone you know is murdered, you want someone arrested and imprisoned for that. But what if you had nothing to do with it, but you were arrested and convicted on circumstantial evidence? Because you had opportunity, perhaps a motive could be construed, what if you were in a certain place at a certain time, made phone calls at a certain time, who knows? What if an eye witness says they saw you somewhere, and you don't know what they're talking about because you were never there? Or you were there the day before & they got their dates mixed up? I don't know how often things like this happen, but it's certainly possible.
I walk ol' Pickles thru a grassy patch between some railroad tracks and some woods most days. What if one day a dead body turned up there, and one of the construction workers working on the new city hall across the road said they saw a tall goofy looking guy with a ticked-up almost hound dog walking out of there? Next thing I know I'd be talking the local Barney Pfife & who knows what would happen.
It's a stretch, I know. But I want all those T's and I's crossed and dotted. Too often they arent. People get really upset when someone is acquitted on a "technicality". I'm glad those technicalities are there. They're called laws, .
I don't know where I'm going with this. I don't want dangerous criminals in society, there's enough walking around already. But people are not infallible, life is full of random events and co-incidences and I'm uncomfortable with the death penalty.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
The Death Penalty
Somewhere online today I read an article that one of the drugs commonly used in executions in the United States is in short supply, and causing some executions to be rescheduled. The article specifically mentioned Kentucky, because there are three execution warrants on the governor's desk, but the state has only enough of this drug for one execution. So the governor signed one of the warrants - for the one who had sentenced the earliest (22 years ago, apparently), and postponed the other two until next year sometime. I thought, how random is that? Executed with the last dose of one of the drugs available in the whole state. His execution is scheduled for September 16th.
I'm from Kentucky, so I found myself looking at the pictures and brief synopsis of the crimes of the 37 people on Kentucky's death row.
I believe the USA and Japan are the only remaining industrialized democracies to execute people. Executions in the USA are normally carried out by the various state governments, it is extremely rare for the Federal Government to sentence someone to death - Timothy McVeigh was the last, I believe.
Currently 36 states have a death penalty, 14 states & Washington, DC do not have a death penalty.
All of the states which have capital punishment either require that lethal injection be used, or offer it as a choice to the condemned prisoner. Most states use a "cocktail" of 3 drugs - Sodium thiopental, Pancuronium, and Potassium chloride. Sodium thiopental is the one in short supply, nation wide. It is a barbiturate, used as an anesthetic and causes unconsciousness in a matter of seconds. Pancuronium causes respiratory paralysis, making the recipient unable to breathe. Last but not least, potassium chloride causes a quick cardiac arrest. The drugs are given in the specific order listed. I think the idea is the condemned prisoner will be put to sleep and as far as he is concerned, that is that. But it is the other two drugs that actually kill him.
Lethal injection was implemented because it was deemed to be more humane form of execution than electrocution, gassing or hanging. Some say it is actually very painful, especially if done even slightly incorrectly, but I'm not sure how they know that. Also there is apparently no reason why these three drugs are used, except that's how the first state to use lethal injection did it and the Supreme Court said it was ok.
I don't know how I feel about the death penalty. I personally would never want to be a part of the chain of people who decided to put a person to death, I wouldn't want that responsibility. I don't have much sympathy for most of the people who find themselves awaiting execution though - to say they aren't nice people would be an understatement. They are extremely dangerous, and society is better off if they are not part of it.
But what if a mistake was made? It has been known to happen. 10 years ago a Republican governor of Illinois imposed a moratorium on executions within the state after DNA evidenced cleared a dozed death row inmates of the crimes they were sentenced to death for. I think he eventually commuted the other death row inmates sentences to life in prison.
Also I know how life works, and lots of times things are arbitrary - for example the person in Kentucky being executed with the last dose of Sodium thiopental, while two others scheduled to be executed get a reprieve, however temporary, seems arbitrary to me. But that's the least of it. A person frequently ends up on death row because of his gender, his race or the race of the victim, his geographic location, his financial status, his (lack of) intelligence, his standing or lack of standing in the community and the effectiveness of his defense (which frequently depends on his financial status). Two people can be found guilty of similar crimes and receive completely different punishments. There have been instances where the person who killed someone received a life sentence, while another person waiting in the "getaway car" so to speak received a death sentence.
One of the prisoners on Kentucky's death row was convicted of murder and sentenced to life, eligible for parole after 25 years or so. He appealed his sentence and won a new trial. At his second trial, he was convicted again and sentenced to death. Same person, same crime, same circumstances, two different sentences.
No one can convince me that of all the people awaiting execution in the USA (I dont know how many, but it must be hundreds), or of all the people ever executed in this country, there has never been a mistake. Apparently in 2000 there were a dozen wrongful convictions in Illinois leading to death sentences, and that is a lot. I'm glad I wasnt the last person executed in Illinois before the governor decided there was a problem.
Most of the people awaiting execution in the USA are guilty as sin. Most are very dangerous people, and I would not want them anywhere near me. It's like they have a sense of entitlement that tells them it's ok to kill other people to get what they want or to deal with their problems. They need to be in prison, and they need to be there forever as far as I'm concerned - I dont have too much faith in rehabilitation. But the whole death penalty situation seems very random to me, when considered as whole across the whole country. It does seem "arbitrary and capricious". And very, very final. No chance to correct a mistake.
Life without parole, in some terrible prison, decades of a lonely and probably dangerous existence with people just as dangerous as they are seems a good enough punishment for me.
I'm from Kentucky, so I found myself looking at the pictures and brief synopsis of the crimes of the 37 people on Kentucky's death row.
I believe the USA and Japan are the only remaining industrialized democracies to execute people. Executions in the USA are normally carried out by the various state governments, it is extremely rare for the Federal Government to sentence someone to death - Timothy McVeigh was the last, I believe.
Currently 36 states have a death penalty, 14 states & Washington, DC do not have a death penalty.
All of the states which have capital punishment either require that lethal injection be used, or offer it as a choice to the condemned prisoner. Most states use a "cocktail" of 3 drugs - Sodium thiopental, Pancuronium, and Potassium chloride. Sodium thiopental is the one in short supply, nation wide. It is a barbiturate, used as an anesthetic and causes unconsciousness in a matter of seconds. Pancuronium causes respiratory paralysis, making the recipient unable to breathe. Last but not least, potassium chloride causes a quick cardiac arrest. The drugs are given in the specific order listed. I think the idea is the condemned prisoner will be put to sleep and as far as he is concerned, that is that. But it is the other two drugs that actually kill him.
Lethal injection was implemented because it was deemed to be more humane form of execution than electrocution, gassing or hanging. Some say it is actually very painful, especially if done even slightly incorrectly, but I'm not sure how they know that. Also there is apparently no reason why these three drugs are used, except that's how the first state to use lethal injection did it and the Supreme Court said it was ok.
I don't know how I feel about the death penalty. I personally would never want to be a part of the chain of people who decided to put a person to death, I wouldn't want that responsibility. I don't have much sympathy for most of the people who find themselves awaiting execution though - to say they aren't nice people would be an understatement. They are extremely dangerous, and society is better off if they are not part of it.
But what if a mistake was made? It has been known to happen. 10 years ago a Republican governor of Illinois imposed a moratorium on executions within the state after DNA evidenced cleared a dozed death row inmates of the crimes they were sentenced to death for. I think he eventually commuted the other death row inmates sentences to life in prison.
Also I know how life works, and lots of times things are arbitrary - for example the person in Kentucky being executed with the last dose of Sodium thiopental, while two others scheduled to be executed get a reprieve, however temporary, seems arbitrary to me. But that's the least of it. A person frequently ends up on death row because of his gender, his race or the race of the victim, his geographic location, his financial status, his (lack of) intelligence, his standing or lack of standing in the community and the effectiveness of his defense (which frequently depends on his financial status). Two people can be found guilty of similar crimes and receive completely different punishments. There have been instances where the person who killed someone received a life sentence, while another person waiting in the "getaway car" so to speak received a death sentence.
One of the prisoners on Kentucky's death row was convicted of murder and sentenced to life, eligible for parole after 25 years or so. He appealed his sentence and won a new trial. At his second trial, he was convicted again and sentenced to death. Same person, same crime, same circumstances, two different sentences.
No one can convince me that of all the people awaiting execution in the USA (I dont know how many, but it must be hundreds), or of all the people ever executed in this country, there has never been a mistake. Apparently in 2000 there were a dozen wrongful convictions in Illinois leading to death sentences, and that is a lot. I'm glad I wasnt the last person executed in Illinois before the governor decided there was a problem.
Most of the people awaiting execution in the USA are guilty as sin. Most are very dangerous people, and I would not want them anywhere near me. It's like they have a sense of entitlement that tells them it's ok to kill other people to get what they want or to deal with their problems. They need to be in prison, and they need to be there forever as far as I'm concerned - I dont have too much faith in rehabilitation. But the whole death penalty situation seems very random to me, when considered as whole across the whole country. It does seem "arbitrary and capricious". And very, very final. No chance to correct a mistake.
Life without parole, in some terrible prison, decades of a lonely and probably dangerous existence with people just as dangerous as they are seems a good enough punishment for me.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
A year ago today
It was a year ago today that my mother died in a room on the 3rd floor of the Appalachian Regional Hospital in Hazard, Kentucky. She was old, in poor health, and too frail to fight off infections after an emergency & life saving operation a couple of weeks earlier. Her last 2 weeks of life were miserable.
I had been to see her a week earlier, but had returned. When I saw her she was in bad shape, but was apparently doing better than she had been a few days before.
My brother called me late in the afternoon on the 23rd & told me she wasn't going to make it. The medicine was not working, her body would not heal. My father and the doctors had made the decision to make her as comfortable as possible, to keep her from any more suffering. It had become obvious that she was not going to recover. No one had any idea of how long she might live. They moved her out of intensive care and waited.
I left the next morning. I got the call just after noon, moments after I had pulled into a service station in Gate City, Virginia. She died less than 24 hrs after my brother called, surrounded by family members, but I was still almost 100 miles away.
So it's been a year. I haven't forgotten.
I had been to see her a week earlier, but had returned. When I saw her she was in bad shape, but was apparently doing better than she had been a few days before.
My brother called me late in the afternoon on the 23rd & told me she wasn't going to make it. The medicine was not working, her body would not heal. My father and the doctors had made the decision to make her as comfortable as possible, to keep her from any more suffering. It had become obvious that she was not going to recover. No one had any idea of how long she might live. They moved her out of intensive care and waited.
I left the next morning. I got the call just after noon, moments after I had pulled into a service station in Gate City, Virginia. She died less than 24 hrs after my brother called, surrounded by family members, but I was still almost 100 miles away.
So it's been a year. I haven't forgotten.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
The Cemetery in Kentucky
This is part of the cemetery near Hindman, Kentucky where my mother is buried. Her grave is a little behind where I took the picture.
The cemetery has been around awhile, but it is still fairly new as far as I'm concerned. I can remember when there was a house here, and corn and stuff like that. This is place is prime bottom land. Mom probably passed this place 10,000 times in her life, and I'm sure I've driven by it hundreds of times. Most of that time it was a farm, or at the very least it had very large gardens. But now it's a cemetery and my mother is buried there. Who knew.
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