Forty Shades of Grey

On rights to life and death

In the beginning

Last spring, I hosted an annual luncheon for nine ladies I work with. Conversation turned to hair-coloring. To dye or not to dye, that was the question. The ladies present spanned the black-to-white spectrum, untinted and otherwise, with a faux ruby-head — yours truly — tainting the monochromatic mix.

I remarked that I’d recently leafed through a picture book targeted to the silver-citizen contingent, which featured elegant ladies whose hair colors ranged from low-salt to hold-the-pepper.

One of the guests, Diana, perked up at my description. She said she was looking forward to getting her hands on this book everyone was talking about. She said she was on the waiting list at the library, and that it would likely be a long wait, considering that the book was a best seller.

I looked at Diana, puzzled. I’d come across the book simply by chance; it had been on the adult picture book table, on offer for the standard borrowed time of four weeks with three renewals.

Best sellers go for two weeks, no renewal, I told Diana; moreover, it appeared that the book had lain untouched.

“Are you sure we’re talking about the same book, Diana?” I asked.

“I should think so!” Diana replied. “Going by your description — from black to white and all between — it seems the obvious title would be Fifty Shades of Grey.”

We all laughed at Diana’s punch-line.

We laughed even more when we realized she hadn’t been joking. Though she had heard everybody was talking about Fifty Shades of Grey, she had no clue as to its salacious content.

I’ve heard more than enough about Fifty Shades of Grey to steer myself clear of all fifty. I find the premise of bondage disturbing, period; spare me the details, nuance be damned.

Then there are the forty shades of grey we’ve all heard more than enough about. Gather round to paint-by-number the pregnant lady, one shade darker per week of gestation.

I find the premise of abortion disturbing, but no period. Instead, a question mark — and don’t spare me the details.

Nuance be damned, pro-lifers would say: grey is the new black, be it a tinge at conception or charcoal at term.

I say that to equate a fertilized egg with a baby does not show respect for human life, but rather cheapens it.

It is disingenuous to cry “murder!” when a morning-after pill prevents the implantation of an undifferentiated clump of cells.

The M-word, over-extended so, loses its punch long before it’s needed for the main event.

If you were to cry “wolf” at the sight of a chipmunk, then you would have to boldly clothe an actual wolf, then CAP him, and accessorize with a trio of !!!

To scrawl “murder” across the board 40 times is “overkill” (it’s ironic that the word is, by definition, superfluously hyperbolic).

Lest “murder” become meaningless, let’s look to our vocabulary list and find a descriptor apropos of lesser evils.

I propose the all-purpose old standby, “wrong.” A wishy-washy word — which is precisely why it suffices; that is, it blends unobtrusively with all 40 shades of grey. “Wrong” seeks clarification, begs for discussion, pleads for argument.

I concede to the pro-life contingent that abortion is wrong, starting from about shade #3, and becoming increasingly wrong up until shade #23, after which, murder begins its rightful march to the finish line.

Those are the numbers I paint by; the pro-choice campers would use fewer of the 40 shades and choose the lighter ones at that.

Join whichever “wrong” club you will, or start your own. We — each of us — have not only an equal right to life, after all, but also an equal right to be wrong. I cannot in good conscience cheat my readers of the full fifty shades. Behold below another splash of nuanced greys to complete the set.

End of Story

Last Saturday, my friend’s Aunt Jane died. Rather, I should say she was “morphed.”

The noun morph derives from the Greek word for “form”; as a verb to morph means, literally, to change form.

These days, the verb morph is often used loosely to mean change in character; in past times, the noun morph was slang for “morphine.”

Aunt Jane morphed in the figurative sense; that is, not in her shape, but in her state — from alive to dead.

Aunt Jane was also morphed in that she was given morphine to effect her transition.

Aunt Jane had been residing for many months in the euphemistic state of “discomfort” whose natives, alas, speak only medical-ese.

Aunt Jane would wander daily throughout the region spanning somewhat north of “Take Two Aspirin” and south of “Knock Me Out.” Aunt Jane was not in intractable agony. Aunt Jane was 98 years old and 8 years demented. She’d been put “on hospice” eight months prior when it had been determined that she had less than six months to live.

Aunt Jane had out-lasted her welcome; hence her expeditious send-off. Had she been 30 years younger and 30 percent sharper, she’d have had been given extra-strength Tylenol every four-to-six hours, not morphine in mega-dose on demand.

Aunt Jane was in no state to make demands. Her daughter Lauren acted on her behalf — i.e., as Jane’s agent — as per power of attorney.

Whether Lauren acted in her behalf — i.e., in Jane’s interest — is less than certain.

She wouldn’t have wanted to suffer.

Sure sounds like a no-brainer — but how do you define “suffer?” More to the point, how did Aunt Jane define “suffer?”

We’ll never know, will we?