Exiting life on your own terms

What do you think of Ulla’s statement about exiting life “on my own terms”?

When I read Ulla’s narrative entitled “The Road Less Traveled”, I related to her because I have visited Gdansk, Poland, formerly Danzig. I have viewed the photographs of the city before and after WWII which resulted in about 90% of the city being reduced to rubble, like the images we are seeing of Syrian cities.

I suspect that most people would like to enjoy their last years as Ulla is by enjoying herself taking, “exciting trips with the Sierra Club,” “downhill skiing,” and traveling all over the country and the world. Unfortunately, most people will not be able to enjoy those pursuits, because they cannot afford them, or are in poor health.  I have spoken to several elderly people who just hope that their mind does not deteriorate in their later years and Ulla’s seems pretty good when this was written.

For myself, when I reflect on the massacre of students in Parkland, Florida and the bombings by the Syrian government which killed many innocent children, I want to use the time left to me to do something to try to make the world a little better. Sadly, none of us know when that last day or moment will be and I am always interested to hear an individual’s response to a question, if you knew this was going to be your last day alive, what would you do today? For those seventeen students in Parkland, FL, they never got to make that choice, and for over one hundred people on average that die daily on our highways, they too never get choice.

While you can, live and enjoy each day and if you can help someone and make their life a little better, do so. When Scott Beigel, a teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida went to school, he probably gave no thought to what he would do on the last day of his life, but he will be remembered for what he did before that day and what he did during it.

“He was a hero before he saved these lives. Just as many people who will be talking about Scott would be calling him a hero even if this didn’t occur. Obviously, a tragedy,” Beigel’s sister Melissa Zech said Saturday.

“He died shielding his students from gunfire. He made the ultimate sacrifice to do what he so often effortlessly did — make the lives of other people better,” his friend Matt Hipps, a first-year director at Dalton State University in Georgia, wrote on Facebook the morning after the shootings.

Scott Beigel leaves behind his parents, a sister, and a girlfriend whom he planned to marry.

Kelsey Friend, one of Beigel’s students, told CNN that he was shot outside the classroom door he’d held open for fleeing students when he went to lock it after ushering everyone inside.

She also told ABC’s “Good Morning America” she believes the killer bypassed the room, figuring no one was inside, when he saw Biegel lying by the door. Kelsey says Beigel saved her life.

“Mr. Beigel was my hero and he still will forever be my hero. I will never forget the actions that he took for me and for fellow students in the classroom,” Kelsey told CNN. “I am alive today because of him. If I could see him right now ... I’d give him a huge teddy bear to say thank you. But, unfortunately, I can’t do that.”