I understand that the dying process is unfamiliar territory and none of us know how we're going to go or what the path will be like. My father died a couple ye

I understand that the dying process is unfamiliar territory and none of us know how we're going to go or what the path will be like. My father died a couple years ago after a long decline. He would have passed the verbal request criteria, but he had a long history of saying unambiguously that he did not want extraordinary measures to prolong his life, and he consistently refused medications and medical care in the last 10 years of his life. However, hearing him say things like "If I knew how to end this, I would" was one of the hardest things I've ever heard, because he was not the type to give up. In the end, he declined rapidly in the course of a couple weeks and passed away on his own. There's some peace to knowing that even though it was a really hard road, he went out basically the way he wanted - without being plugged into a bunch of machines, without medications, in his own time and his own bed. I'm glad we didn't indulge his last minute desires for the easy way out. I really hope Coloradoans will make good decisions, but I know that sometimes they won't.