September 12, 2014
The Peaceful Suicide of Two Friends
SBS The Feed By Jeannette Francis
Exit Members Claire and Val chose to end their lives together.
Val had Alzheimer’s, but Claire was perfectly healthy. Claire left a letter explaining her suicide.
The story interviews both Claire’s son and Philip Nitschke, who Claire sent a copy of her letter to.
The full letter is below.
I HAVE A FRIEND
I have a friend. No more… and no less. She is just a friend. Yet the meaning of friendship is now to be mad apparent. Revealed by the nature and passage of life.
We met 24 years ago, more by design than by chance. I needed accommodation in Melbourne while I looked to buy a house and I had the skills that she, as Director of Nursing needed, to assist hospital staff in research. So I found some temporary and inexpensive accommodation at a Nurses home and shared my skills in return. When I purchased my home a few months later she came to help me paint the skirting boards and we shared our background stories. I learnt that she was an award winning, and highly experienced, registered nurse. She was also someone who, as part of the Australian medical tea, had the courage to fly into Vietnam at the end of the war, on the day that Saigon fell, to snatch up the many orphans who would be killed by the incoming communist forces. She was modest, kind and generous of spirit. I had not known her then but she remained a good person, a good friend with compassion and integrity, slow to anger and always willing to help anyone
Gradually we realised we had became good friends despite being so unalike in nature. While she was the calm, gentle, patient one, I was the ‘well, have to go, so much to do, have to change the world!” You know, the Type A personality.
I too had begun working life as a registered nurse with postgraduate studies in critical care including biomedical sciences. I later qualified with a doctorate in medial anthropology and undertook post doctoral studies at Harvard University.
I was appointed to university positions that brought me to Australia and a career path in health research. It was now that I met my friend. Despite my more impatient, ‘full on’, ‘can do’ approach to professional life, having some to Australia I developed asthma and when in that first year in Melbourne, my asthmas was problematic and unpredictable, she would stay overnight to ensure my safety until it stabilised.
A few years after he mother died we decided to try share living in my home on the understanding that, if it didn’t work out, she would take her belongings and move out. Those belongings stayed in storage for the next 15 years before I finally said, “well, it looks like we get on all right, so how about selling your furniture?”
Over the years, we travelled together, worked hard and led interesting lives. However, at fifty eight years of age my friend retired early with a serious heart condition. After years of travelling the world, studying and working in many countries, I added a qualification in computer graphics and focused on becoming a biomedical visualization specialist. In the past year or so I was preparing images for neuroscientists to aid the communication of their scientific research and for science television programs.
Yet in our spare time we had also become Australian Red Cross volunteers in their Emergency and Disaster programme. We did this happily for four years until one day my friend could no longer organise the post-flood paperwork we needed out in the filed in country Victoria. That was the end of 2012. In March 2013 she was diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s disease.
On reflection we had been noticing the symptoms for a few weeks. It was now time to discuss in depth what she wanted to do and how we would proceed to take care of her the best we could. As experienced health professionals we knew the path that Alzheimer’s was laying before us. Knowing she would gave cared for me had the situation been reversed, I promised I would be her carer to the end.
We would work out our strategies together to manage the disease as we were confronted by her particular symptoms and behaviour changes. This we have done, sometimes with frustration at the swings and turns the disease imposed but always with good humour and, so often, lots of laughter at the nonsense Alzheimer’s can render.
During those initial discussion my friend declared her wish that she not be sent to a Nursing Home, or be allowed to lose her sense of self, her dignity. She also declared her wish to leave this life, in a way, and at a time of her own choosing, preferring to die at home in familiar surrounds where she has always been happy. We have discussed this every now and then since. She has not wavered, she wishes to die having lived a life of joyful giving, at a time when Alzheimer’s is not just robbing her of words or numeracy but when it starts to rob her of reason and clear decision making.
Being a technophobe, she has also asked me to help her so she does not get this final step wrong and end up in a vegetative state despite her earnest wishes. She does not want to die alone. No one does. Therefore, I have made a promise that I will be with her and help her should she need assistance.
It is not ego that makes me describe how our lives have led to this point. Rather, it is so the reader can understand enough of our background to show why our life philosophy is grounded in science, rather than religion.
Yet, while we could no longer believe the avid biblical stories on which we had been raised, I tended to follow the philosophical stance of Buddhism mainly because of its gentle wisdom… including daily meditation to discipline the mind, its lessons on how to develop compassion toward all, and the importance of patience.
Therefore we have decided that we will live the remainder of days that the course of her disease will allow and when we recognise the symptoms of change that indicate we are now on that slippery slope to an undignified end, we will take the necessary step.
We are aware that she must be able to take that final step with a ‘sound mind’, a mind that can still understand what she is doing and take her final actions voluntarily and willingly. I have told her many times that I am not willing to assist her if she is unable to take this step in a fully informed way, basing her decision on the facts of the disease process. She knows she cannot wait too long and forfeit her ability to reason, as to ask for assistance would constitute homicide on my part and neither of us believes that to be acceptable.
Having said this, we are also aware that under the current (and we believe out-dated) law in this land, the police are obliged to charge me with aiding and abetting a suicide and I am not prepared to undergo the harassment and disgrace of a prosecution.
This leaves with me no choice but to join my friend at her time of death.
Given the laws that exist at this time in history, what I am obliged to do, I will do, and do willingly. Who would consider a loyal friend to be someone who walks away when their friend is in need? What is loyalty when one abandons others in order to protect oneself?
I find I cannot do that.
None of our actions had been taken lightly, but neither had they been taken with sorrow or regret. We are just two ordinary people content and fulfilled with our lives but have planned how to manage the disease confronting us and have chosen to leave this world before all dignity and integrity is lost. We will have a wonderful final day and share a meal together before we wish each other well on our final journey.
Now, others will judge us. Yet, each of us must do as he or she sees fit, true to his or her beliefs. It seems to us that it is only wrong when we expound beliefs, then walk away when they don’t suit, or are uncomfortable to carry out. For us, this has been an entirely rational decision, taken in full knowledge of contemporary research in the filed and experience of working with people who have Alzheimer’s.
We imagine that at the turn of the century, euthanasia/dying with dignity will be regarded as a normal, rational, ethical and legal action, accessible to all who wish to avail themselves of this option, while still protecting the vulnerable and their friends and family.