When I was moved by a recent essay, I looked up information about the author, and found that she is a neighbor of mine. She has written a marvelous reflection filled with beauty, grace and challenge. Her name is Christina Chase, and I hope I’ll meet her in person someday.
In this week when the District of Columbia Council has voted in favor of an assisted suicide measure, Christina Chase has made her case for embracing life and rejecting suicide.
Do you know what it’s like to be weaker than an infant, laboring daily to breathe, ravaged by an incurable disease, completely and utterly dependent on others for every basic need of survival? I do. Although I am not terminally ill, but rather chronically ill, I know that one chest cold can turn into pneumonia and kill me… probably an agonizing death over days… or weeks….And there have been times when I have wondered… is my life worth all of this? … all of this work, sacrifice and heartache?
If you know me, then you know how I answer this wondering. My desire to live is very strong. In fact, I love life…. And, yet, even I feel the guilt and sadness of burdening the people I love… even I wonder if I’m worth it.
So, I can clearly imagine what a person who is terminally ill would face if physician-assisted suicide was made legal in my state.
This is only an excerpt. I commend to you the whole essay.
Update, 2026: Christina’s essay was first published on the website of St. John the Baptist Church in Suncook, New Hampshire. That link is no longer active, but I’m happy to discover that Christina re-published it on her own blog Christina Chase: Reflections of Sacred Wonder.
Christina has written a book, available from Sophia Institute Press: “It’s Good to Be Here: A Disabled Woman’s Reflections on God in the Flesh and the Sacred Wonder of Being Human.”
Ellen Kolb 
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