STORY
While traveling with my family in the summer of 2017, I called my parents at their home in Northern California. A few weeks prior, my mother had been suddenly diagnosed with stage 4 spindle cell sarcoma in her lung, a very rare and aggressive form of cancer.
She'd had lower back pain for about 10 months that neither exercise, massage, nor rest helped. She asked me when we'd be back, revealing her plans to take the prescribed drugs to pass peacefully in the coming weeks. Our family was invited to come say goodbye.
In her lifetime, my mother had been a social worker for terminally ill cancer patients and over the prior six years, she had watched my sister-in-law slowly and painfully die of colorectal cancer. She knew the fate her own diagnosis implied and did not want to put her family through the stress of watching her suffer nor did she want to endure the pain or quality of life that treatment would cause.
My mother was adamant that she wanted out of her life, describing the cancer as a freight train coursing through her body that caused her to feel like she was living in an alternate universe. She skipped treatment when doctors advised that it wouldn't prolong her life for more than 6 months. She had always been very active, and now she wasn't able to walk up a set of stairs; this wasn't how she wanted to live.
We drove up from Los Angeles on August 8th, the day before my mother's last. I spent four hours alone with her that evening, the two of us talking well into the night.
The next morning, the medication was delivered. My sister-in-law, a nurse, mixed the contents of 90 barbiturate capsules with a glass of apple juice as our immediate family gathered in my parents' bedroom.
Two minutes is how long doctors recommend one should take to ingest the fatal dosage. My mother grasped her glass and drank it in 30 seconds. As she gradually drifted away, she went around the room addressing each of us with her goodbyes.
I’m sharing this story because it shows the courage, determination, and love she embodied in her final moments. She taught us that there's grace in being in charge of your own destiny. The California Death With Dignity Act is just that – dignified. Ultimately it is humane and kind.
With a small video camera, I shot most of what I've described here. From our drive up from LA, to the moment she asked me to put the camera down before she drank the medicine. I determined then that I would make a documentary about this wonderful law, with the hope that the exposure will hasten it into law in every state.
In addition to my mother's story, I have included others with terminal illnesses willing to share their advocacy for medical aid in dying.
If there ever comes a point where you're faced with this decision, what would you do? This law, legal in only 10 U.S. states and D.C., deserves national endorsement.
My mother loved her home near the top of Mount Tamalpais, especially the surrounding woodlands and views of Tiburon Bay. She always said that the only way she'd ever leave was “feet first”. She got her wish.