As most of you know, we had to take our "permanent foster" dog to the vet for the last time. She was 14-15 years old, with a mass on her liver pressing her stomach to where she could eat any more. She went from bouncing around like a lunatic to plodding and sleeping all the time in just a few weeks. We knew - painful as it was - that it was time to let her go.

I am reminded of this as our best ex-president ever - President Jimmy Carter - decided to forgo any further medical treatment and embrace home hospice care. Like our pets, we think they'll always be there, and then... and then you realize they won't be. No thing and no person lives forever, and their absence leaves a hole in the lives of those we love. At a certain age (or a certain point in a disease), it's pretty clear there's no "recovery" to a standard of living we set for ourselves, our loved ones, and our pets.

It's odd and a bit sad that we "do the right" thing when it comes to our pets, but somehow don't want to "play God" when it comes to humans. We often think of suicide as "selfish" or a failed mental health system, but that over-simplies the issue. We look at life as so precious that when it becomes untenable, we refuse to see the truth before us. We will use every medical trick in the book to keep a person alive for just a few days, weeks, or months longer, because letting them go seems like admitting defeat.

Some have tried. Those of us of a certain age are familiar with Dr. Kavorkian (aka "Dr. Death" to the intolerant) who created a "suicide" machine. That was necessary, because assisting a person with suicide, or euthanizing a person is illegal, resulting in charges that can run as high as murder. Living Wills and DNR orders have become standard because no one wants to spend the end of their lives in a bed with tubes running in and out, staring at the ceiling, wondering when it will all end (or worse - in a coma, and unable to speak on one's own behalf).

For now, hospice care is the next best thing to getting a shot that puts one "to sleep" permanently, the way we do with our beloved pets. This allows the natural processes to work while remaining comfortable, so everyone can make peace with it. This doesn't, however, cover those cases where a person no longer wants to live because their quality of life has been so compromised, that facing years of it is a living hell.

This is one of those areas of law where religion has a firm foothold. It's way past time to let people decide when they've had enough pain and suffering, and let them go out with dignity. We deserve to treat ourselves at least as well as we treat our pets.