What would you do?

A devoted couple in their early to middle 80s confronted a crisis of accumulating health problems.  I'd known that elderly couple almost all my life. He was my favourite cousin, about 5 years younger than I; and I'd known her for more than 70 years. They'd had a marvellous life. Thanks to lucky real estate deals and other sensible investments they were very wealthy. They could afford to pay for all the domestic help and personal nursing care they needed. In their early to middle 80s, they were as in love as they had been when they married more than 60 years ago. They looked back on full lives that had been enormously pleasurable. One of the highlights of their lives had been a three-year yachting cruise around the world, during which their daughter had paired off with a man from Chile, a nephew of the dictator Augusto Pinochet. One of their sons had fallen for a French girl, married her, and settled in France. Their other son wasn't quite so fortunate: he'd been caught with marijuana in Greece, and despite high-priced legal counsel with good arguments, he'd spent several months in the slammer in Corfu. That was one of the few clouds on their horizon,apart from the fact that two of their three children settled far away on other sides of the world after they married.

Now things were going wrong.  He had become forgetful and unable to care for himself as dementia held him in its increasingly relentless and clammy grip. She'd fallen victim to mesothelioma, an intractable malignancy caused by exposure many years earlier to trace amounts of asbestos, the amount that might be shed by a fraying insulated oven mitt or a barbecue apron. Mesothelioma can't be treated. The malignancy hits the lining of the lungs, sometimes the lining of the gut; but it can't be cut out, can't be treated with radiation or chemotherapy.  Their daughter's marriage had broken down so she had come home from Chile to live near her parents in Queensland in a prosperous suburb of Brisbane. As the mesothelioma advanced and her vitality wilted away, and her husband became increasingly dependent, forgetful and childlike, she and I exchanged several emails. She didn't confide her intentions to me, but I can vividly imagine the thoughts she must have had as she considered their options. I was saddened but not surprised when my brother phoned me with the news that they had taken their lives. They used exhaust fumes from their car engine, so the cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning. My brother, a devout Christian and a retired physician, expressed disapproval of their decision - her decision I suppose - to end their lives together in this way. He'd have preferred the option of palliative care for her, and longterm care for him - care in uncomprehending solitude without his loving wife beside him, because her prognosis was for a rather brief and painful terminal illness, whereas he might have lived for 10 more years. Years ago Wendy and I talked about several scenarios for the end of our lives. One scenario resembled the reality of the fate that befell my cousin and his wife, and they took - or she took - the same decision we'd have opted for in those circumstances. I wholeheartedly support their decision to die together. I picture them in their car, locked together in a final loving embrace: they were an amorous couple who had no inhibitions about expressing their love for each other when in the company of another loving couple like Wendy and me.

They had enough free will and autonomy to decide their own fate, just as Wendy and I would have when we were still together side by side, and I retain, should circumstances arise to justify it. They and I would strongly support physician assisted suicide. Our Supreme Court has decreed that this ought to be the law of the land. It will be, if the next government of Canada is sensibly chosen in the imminent elections. If circumstances arise in my life to make continuing existence unbearable, it would be comforting to know that this option would be available. I wonder how readers of this blog would decide should they face a situation like that of my cousin David and his wife Judy.  Would they opt for Judy's action? Or would they be in favour of my brother Peter's solution? It's an important question that merits debate by all thoughtful people in a society where the fate that overtook my cousin David and his wife Judy occurs increasingly often. In any event, David and Judy live on with a fondly affectionate place in my memories. (The photo shows Judy, Wendy and David at Gordonbrook sheep and cattle station in northern New South Wales, near Grafton, in 1987).

Judy, Wendy and David,
Gordonbrook, near Grafton, NSW, 1987