Which way to the exit? (The art — or lack thereof — of dying)

I grasped his hands, and was startled by a fierce grip. He was shrunken and frail on the hospital bed, and I didn't expect such force. His eyes were shut, and I spoke his name, hoping to connect with a farewell. His clutch was so tight it hurt, and I momentarily pried my fingers from his. They shot to his face and caged his eyes, as if warding off something. He was in a morphine mist, clutching at phantoms. His mouth gaped.

I renewed my hold more firmly, over the backs of his hands to prevent the crush, and spoke again. His right eye, rheumy and pallid, opened, and his hands forced mine toward his face. I resisted. Then succinctly, in measured tones, I talked of my gratitude for our long and storied friendship, how fine it had been. The eye closed. His overall demeanor seemed to be distress, agitation — in a word, suffering.

I said goodbye and released him, and as I left the room, his shadow wrestling resumed. Death was near, but dallied for another two days. After almost nine decades on the planet, and six years of illness, I wondered if he'd hoped for a smoother finale.

Only a few days before I'd held another dying being — our dog Oscar. I'd brought him to the vet for what I believed was a relatively minor gastrointestinal issue that he'd experienced once before; the symptoms were identical. The vet asked, "Can we take an X-ray?" Sure.

A glance at the image was sufficient: an elderly dog vs. a massive abdominal tumor, probably malignant. The vet outlined an option of "exploratory surgery" and vague percentages, but I could hear between the lines. I knelt on the floor next to Oscar, tears seeping. He looked at me. I looked at the vet. He said, "You don't have to decide now." I shook my head, unable for a moment to speak. I took a deep breath.

"No … it's time … I won't put him through major surgery at his age."

"Fair enough," he replied. Perhaps I was projecting, but the vet seemed relieved.

I couldn't help comparing the two situations. Why did my human friend suffer at the end, and my dog did not?

In our culture, the suffering of animals is increasingly abhorrent — almost taboo. We consider that sentiment a facet of our humanity. But much human pain is not only tolerated, but celebrated. You are expected to be merciful to your dog or cat, but people are different. The more they suffer, the better they are: wiser, tougher and, above all, more righteous. Are we merely making a virtue of necessity? After all, distress is unavoidable. But perhaps we've overcompensated.

Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, wrote: "AA is no success story in the ordinary sense of the word. It is a story of suffering transmuted, under grace into spiritual progress." He also spoke of "the utility of pain."

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., in his famous "Letter from the Birmingham Jail," said: "Unearned suffering is redemptive."

In his novel "Notes from Underground," Dostoevsky noted: "Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering."

The subtext to these musings and pronouncements was neatly summarized by the 19th-century French novelist and essayist Leon Bloy: "When you ask God to send you trials, you may be sure your prayer will be granted." The Judeo-Christian tradition seems almost enthusiastic about human suffering, and during the four years I spent training for the Christian ministry, much of my academic energy was indeed focused on "the problem of evil."

I'm not opposed to a certain level of pain during life. I'm as fond of hardship and ordeal as anyone — a believer in suffering as character builder, with a keen understanding that misery enhances joy. I agree with President Theodore Roosevelt that "the strenuous life" is a worthy aspiration, and is often accompanied by pain. I'm perversely proud of my eight surgeries, most of which were mandated by excruciating injury. These injuries and the resulting operations have bequeathed me a life of chronic hurting. I've not known a pain-free day for at least 15 years, and I never will. The medication that delivers temporary relief will, over the long term, damage or destroy vital organs. Such a condition does afford perspective, does engender empathy. It's true, up to a point: "No pain, no gain" — whether it's physical fitness or emotional growth.

But when it comes to the end of your life, when "gain" has hit the final wall, we should have the option of a death at least as expeditious as what we give our dogs. Yes, yes, it is true that we do have options now. Just over a year ago one of our neighbors, an elderly man in pain, got it done with a pistol barrel in his mouth.

The state of Oregon has had a doctor-assisted suicide program since 1997, and it's belied the fear that such would lead to what a few years ago were referred to as "death panels; that the "right-to-die" would inevitably morph into circumstances "more and more like an expectation," as Michael Gerson recently worried in the Washington Post. Oregon has not experienced a rush of old, sick people being driven by guilt into premature death. During the past 17 years, only 750 people have availed themselves of the service, and all met a strict criteria: Two physicians verify that the person will survive for fewer than six months; tests are administered to demonstrate the absence of depression, impulse or coercion, and the patient must take the killing pills themselves. Sounds good to me.

And this week it also seemed good to 29-year-old Brittany Maynard, who was afflicted with a stage-4 glioblastoma that guaranteed a miserable death. On Nov. 2, she took the doctor-provided barbiturates and slipped away. She and her family had moved to Portland when she decided that the law would serve her well. To my mind, it was a brave and intelligent choice.

Can your loved ones gain from your final suffering? Certainly. My question is, do they need to? Opponents of doctor-assisted suicide speak of the benefits to those tending the tormented dying: lessons of compassion, selflessness and human mortality. A recent post on TheFederalist.com by Maggie Karner, who is dying of cancer, makes precisely that point. However, those same qualities also flow from helping someone die a less painful, prolonged death. Is not such mercy compassionate? Isn't "letting them go" a selfless act? And mortality is mortality regardless of the means. It is the essence of humanness to seek control over our lives, and over our deaths.

Though I believe I made the correct moral decision with my dog Oscar, he did not have a choice in the matter, and our pets never will. However, my human friend deserves a choice for a gentler death. I believe the universe allows it. If your worldview does not, so be it, but at least step away from my deathbed.