I remember the day that she died. This was the fourth time that death appeared in front of me, but her passing affected me like none before.

The first person who died before me was an old man who had drowned in our town's lake. He had been out swimming after dark, and after returning from the local tavern, and apparently sucked in a lot of water. He was dragged ashore and was being administered to by several concerned citizens. None of them knew how to help, or what to do. I was ten years old and watched the man choke and gasp until he died, surrounded by helpless witnesses. I was in disbelief that, after it was decided that he was dead, only a couple of people remained to meet the ambulance. The rest had wandered off to their homes, or back to the tavern.

The second person whom I watched die was a Marine in Beirut. We had just exhumed him from the rubble of the Grand Hotel, which had that morning been razed from five stories of granite and concrete to a colossal mountain of tombstones. Most of the victims had been crushed by tons of concrete, or simply blasted apart by the explosion. Some were saved, who had by some miracle either ridden the building down from the roof top, or been dropped into a niche that wasn't then filled with the rest of the building. The marine we pulled free was alive, but badly pummeled. He was barely aware that we were there, though his eyes seemed to follow our movements. We were in the midst of congratulating ourselves at his rescue, when he closed his eyes and simply stopped breathing. There were no facilities at our reach that could be used to resuscitate him. He became one of the other 241 casualties of the truck bombing of the battalion landing team headquarters.

The third person I witnessed pass was my father. He was in the last days of succumbing to lung cancer and only barely aware of my brother and me being present. We were managing his hospice care and had been giving him morphine, freely, the previous twenty-four hours. He was only able to mouth the word 'pain', which I responded to by giving him another small dose of the drug. In the next four to five hours he literally withered before me. It was as if every sinew and tissue were being recalled within his core, leaving a skin-covered skeletal frame lying asleep before us. His shallow breathing finally ceased and I performed a check of his eyelids, which I presumed was proper. His eyes were dry and I needed to physically close the lid as it had remained where I'd opened it. I kissed him on the forehead, something I did for the first and last time that moment.

The fourth 'person' was our family dog. Lacey was a fourteen-year-old, white labrador. We had her since she wandered out of a corn field as a puppy. She had been the size of a softball, but grew into a polar bear. We weren't dog trainers so she just lived and played with our kids. When we had moved to a new house, a new school, and had new jobs, fourteen years ago, Lacey was a part of all of that with us. Our lack of moderation in her feeding made her an over-weight and joint-stressed older dog. We tried to reverse the process, but she was, after many years, crippled and slowed by pain. When she was finally to the stage of crippling arthritis and the inability to control her bowel movements, I knew it was time to let her go. I had told my wife my plans and she and the kids all hugged and kissed their 'sister' good-bye. I waited until my wife and daughter were away for the day until my son and I took Lacey to the veterinarian. I had to lift her onto the table, as no one else could (she was a hundred pounds). She was calm and cooperative all through the process of inserting the I.V. and hooking up the anesthetic. It all seemed routine, as I had brought her to the vet dozens of times in the last decade. Then came the moment when I had to give the word to overdose her with the anesthetic. She was resting comfortably before me, probably pain free for the first time in over a year. Memories flooded my mind of her gnawing through the cord of the new microwave, chewing off the back of my new shoes, chasing my wife around the house with a dead mole in her mouth, knocking the state representative down at my front door, always running the opposite way when we called her, and dozens of other moments where she filled our minds with delight and frustration. I had some wild thought of taking her back home and having her sleep in this pain-free state a while longer. Reality returned, however, and I gave the vet the okay to administer the anesthetic. She did, and a few seconds later pronounced Lacey dead. Lacey was left to be 'disposed of' and we left the room. I began to quiver. The tears streamed from my eyes. I suddenly experienced a huge pang of guilt. My son had to drive us home.

I don't expect to be at war again, nor will I lose my parents a second time. I didn't choose for any of those people to die; I was simply in attendance. There was nothing I could have done to save any of them. Having the ability to choose life or death, even when the decision seems obvious, is a power that can never be understated, or easily disregarded.