After the experience of nearly dying a few times in my youth, I did not think much about mortality until hosting, in my seventies, a TV episode about hospice. Taken to the home of a patient by her hospice volunteer, we videotaped a conversation between them. In order to get into the hospice program in Oregon, a person must have a doctor declare that he (or in this case, she) is probably within six months of dying.
An elderly woman, the patient had cancer. In spite of pain, she was engaged in life, curious about people, emotionally available. Working the video camera, I felt great affection for her. I was jolted when the hospice volunteer, a younger women with a big heart, said to the patient, “you might die soon (here I gasped), but meanwhile you are one of most vibrant people I know.”
For whatever reason, perhaps incessant pain, the woman soon decided to take advantage of Oregon’s “death with dignity” law, have a farewell party, and drink a fatal potion prescribed or her legally, at her request, by a physician. I was sorry she was no longer in the world, but found her act courageous.
Was she depressed, as we tell ourselves that a person must be if she decides to end her own life? Did she feel she had done what she could and all that was left was a further decline? Not knowing, I did her the honor of trusting her judgment. As far as I know, she regarded her own situation as unique, not a model for anyone else.