![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/20131018-031.jpg\")
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I\u2019ve been given the opportunity to spend time visiting the terminally ill at home as part of the Special Ministry in our parish, and have seen and experienced quite a few things in the past 25 years of doing so with regard to the sick and dying<\/strong>.<\/p>\n This email came late one afternoon from an ex-colleague<\/strong> of mine. It was like a bolt out of the blue:<\/p>\n \u201cGuess you have never been asked this before (…). I know I have no right to ask this of you but I am searching my conscience and really need help for an answer. I have been asked to escort \u2018someone\u2019 to Switzerland to be with him\/her as they die. I am sure you know about the euthanasia program that is available there.* The person’s life is a misery, no hope of returning to a so called normal life….he\/she has no religious beliefs and has no possibility of returning to\u00a0a reasonable life… Personally, I have no religious beliefs, so your honesty would be appreciated. If it helps it is a family member I am talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n I sat and read it over, I think, probably 4-5 times<\/strong> before I started to think about an answer. How do you answer such a painful cry for help? What sprang to mind was the \u201cthought of the day\u201d I was living with my Focolare friends:\u00a0 \u201cFree yourself totally in order to be the living will of God\u201d. <\/em>But how could I live it? I tried to concentrate on living the present moment, putting aside everything else in order to take onto myself the burden of the person who was asking for my help. I prayed to God for courage to say with sincerity what I was feeling in my heart, without any fear.<\/p>\n All I did was to share my thoughts as asked. I also shared some brief experiences I have personally made with the dying and their families over the past 25 years, that includes the sufferings, the joys and the triumphs. And then I said I wouldn\u2019t take the path her relative had chosen and the reasons why from the depths of my heart, and gave her some contacts in Palliative Care close to her.<\/p>\n My friend, who has always remained grateful for my help, recently let me know that she had shared my thoughts with her relative who decided to consult the resources I had given her and not to go to Switzerland, choosing the palliative care option instead. \u00a0In fact she spent nearly 2 years making peace within the family<\/strong>.<\/p>\n R.L. (Australia)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Through his voluntary work with the terminally ill, R. is particularly sensitive towards those who suffer. The experience accumulated over the years enables him to give assistance and advice to a friend faced with a serious dilemma.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}