I’m not religious. I could never believe in any deity that would put people through so much suffering just for the hell of it. I don’t believe in heaven or hell, and I’m quite certain that when I die, I’m done with this place. I won’t come back to haunt my enemies, I won’t be reincarnated as a cat, there will be no soul to capture, and I’ll just be gone.

I’ve already made a deal with the University of Oslo for body donation. Not because I don’t want my organs to keep someone else alive, but because the probability of dying in such a way that my organs can be used for transplanting is quite small. One has to die in a donor hospital – ie DOA doesn’t cut it. And if I’d been a med student I would have loved the idea of examining me, with this weird body full of so many flaws og wonky bits that interesting stuff is bound to be present!

Doing a body donation also means that there won’t be a funeral right away, just a memorial service. As Norwegian law is quite clear on the subject, someone has to bury at least a small part of me, within three years, so I’m hoping they choose my left thumb (only part I’ve never had an issue with). I’ve also got the approval for getting my ashes spread in my forest rather than a burial. This also means that there will be no gravestone and no marker to point where my ashes fertilize the earth and become cloudberries (knowing my luck I’ll probably just be the bushy head of a hare’s-tail cottongrass).

Thing is – I don’t want anyone to have to take care of a “final resting place” for me. It would be hypocritical for me to be a burden after I die. And quite frankly, if family and friends can’t visit me while I’m alive, I see no reason to give them any place to mourn me after I’m dead. They can always visit the forest and remember me there, but I see no reason for anyone to have to take care of a grave site with a bunch of bones in it.

Which also means that I am a firm believer in assisted suicide (the term assisted suicide is preferred as a phrase over euthanasia due to the eugenesist politics of the Nazi era). I don’t understand why putting a dog to sleep is considered humane, whilst insisting humans have to wait for a natural ending isn’t. Where is the humanity, decency and dignity in letting a human being without quality of life lie in a bed and just wait for an ending that might take weeks or months? Where is the peaceful transition for his or her family, who have to sit and wait for the inevitable to happen? Have to sit and watch a loved one not get the eternal rest they wish and beg for?

There are a growing number of institutions that offer assisted suicide and of organisations that work for the right to decide over one’s own death. UK-based Dignity in dying is one of them. In Europe, there are a number of countries who now allow assisted suicide and hopefully there will be more countries joining them.

Not that I have any plans of dying anytime soon.

Personally, I hope that when my time comes, some old farmer will just drag me behind the barn and put me out of my misery. I don’t want to grow old with nothing to live for.