By Sondra Whitt
Someone, let’s call her Jane, was giving me an update on the health of an 88-year-old who is a mutual relative-by-marriage. This gentleman is dying with cancer and had declined to go into the hospital or hospice, nor did he want anyone to come into his home to care for him. The last I heard, he wasn’t going to subject himself to chemo, etc. either. Jane said he was just being “stubborn and unreasonable.” I didn’t comment since I was reminded of how she had been “stubborn and unreasonble” in the past … from her son’s point of view. I hold the viewpoint that whether or not a person is being stubborn and unreasonable is strictly in the eye of the beholder. Furthermore, that person has the right to be as stubborn and unreasonable as he or she wants in making their own life decisions. Of course, I doubt that the dying man thinks he’s doing anything other than conducting his life … and the end of it … as he chooses to.