Dignity

There once was a man who died a thousand deaths.

The man, when young, was sent to war. He came back in a casket, bearing his country’s flag.

The man, now middle-aged, owned a nice home in a nice neighborhood. The police found him bled out, shielding his infant son.

At last, the man was old, the Elder of a noble people. They laid his burnt bones at the base of a great tree, that his spirit might find the path to heaven.

A thousand times the man died and, in each death, there was a certain dignity.

Death with dignity was well and good, but life with dignity, ah, what a challenge. Ω