Suicide in Middle Earth

[alatar]

Originally Posted by LadyBrooke

This might just be me, but the Kings letting go of their lives always seemed to me to be like the chronically ill person who instead of clinging to live by the use of machines and stuff lets themselves die. As somebody who is very sickly (having had meningitis, tubes in her ears due to severe ear infections that cause her ear drums to burst several times and lose of hearing, chronic tonsilitis, born premature, etc.) the distinction is very clear to me that once a person passes a certain point it stops being living and becomes merely existing. I myself have decided that as soon as I am old enough I will have a living will telling everybody to not put me on any machine. Perhaps this seems like suicide to some, but to me it is putting my fate in God’s hands and excepting that I will go when it is my time. While I hesitate to stick words in anybody’s mouth, this may possibly be along the same lines that Tolkien (and by extension the Númenorean Kings) was thinking.

LadyBrooke, welcome to the Downs! Sorry for your illness; hope that you have better days.

My father, in his last days of battling advanced cancer, decided to 'let go.' He had had enough, and while his mind was still able, he had his feeding tube removed along with any source of hydration. At the time, though as a biologist I knew better, I hoped that maybe, just maybe he was feeling better, but he wasn't. I explained to my siblings that the countdown clock had started and we would only a few days left together. He made it about five days- a couple of them conscious - and then that was it. Now we wished that he had tried some of the experimental treatments that he was offered, but at the time he had found inconvenient.

Anyway, it all reminds me of the Kings.

Um, sorry if this isn’t very clear or anything. I’m rather nervous as this is my first post of this website, though I have posted on other websites and have lurked here for a long time.

You're doing fine.