The Burden: poem about end of life choice

How To Be Old
How To Be Old
The Burden: poem about end of life choice
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A poem about my mother’s elaborate plan to end her life at 70 by throwing herself down a crevasse in the Franz Josef Glacier or Fox Glacier. I can’t remember which. End of life choice is complicated and personal. Her own choice was purely imaginary when she was young.

My mother's elaborate plan for end of life choice: asking her daughter to take her to a glacier in the Southern Alps. A poem.
Celia somewhere in the Southern Alps: her imaginary location for end of life choice

5 thoughts on “The Burden: poem about end of life choice

  1. Nyla Carroll says:

    What an amazing poem and story – thanks for sharing and posting…

  2. Robyn Haynes says:

    I enjoyed your poem Rachel. It made me think of how our ideas of end of life change as we age.

    1. Rachel McAlpine says:

      That’s very true. Thank you Robyn.

  3. floridaborne says:

    Your mother looks so much like my grandmother when she was young. There’s a poem in her eyes, reflected in her stance. Youth that knows no end, as she sits atop a world of possibilities. You and I know how it feels to look back at that person we call “youth,” knowing she lives inside us.

    1. Rachel McAlpine says:

      She had dreams, for sure, and her eyes were looking far and high. Thank you for looking.

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