The Last Beautiful Day

Spring has arrived and there are flowers blooming in the small garden bed that I finally got around to planting last year. Just one of many things I wish I had done sooner. My favourite are the dahlias, in yellow, orange, and pink, because you can never have too many. There are a few bees buzzing around, and the resident magpie, who I named Charlie, is watching me from the fence. After all of the winter rain, even the small patch of grass is looking very green and healthy. I am soaking it all in, sitting on my back porch drinking my morning coffee and enjoying the sun shining on my face. On such a glorious day I should be hugely grateful to be alive, and I am, but at the same time I am contemplating whether today should be the day I die.

The first sign that something was wrong was when I woke up on a rainy June morning about four years ago with a terrible headache and feeling so dizzy I was struggling to stand up. I had been experiencing regular headaches for a while but dismissed it as all that usual stuff. You know, working too hard, not sleeping enough, not drinking enough water. I thought maybe I had a severe migraine, but I’d never had one before and I was starting to really worry. In hindsight I think I knew instantly that it was something serious, but I tried to suppress that thought as much as possible. I grabbed my phone from the bedside table and called the person everyone calls when they don’t know what to do, I called my Mum. Of course she came straight over, helped me get dressed and took me to the hospital.

I never really knew my Dad, he died in a car accident on his way home from work when I was two years old. Mum struggled with her grief for a long time. I remember spending many hours with my kind elderly neighbour when Mum couldn’t look after herself and me at the same time. She finally found solace and a strong sense of community at the local church. It was nice for her to have that support, and having grown up with it, I too felt a strong connection to the people there. I was never as devoutly religious as Mum, but I felt like the friends we made at church were like family, and I knew how much it meant to her that I continued to regularly go to church even after I moved out of home into my own place. If I ever had any doubts about my religious beliefs, I never really voiced them to Mum or anyone else. The one time I did, Mum got really upset and said it as a silly teenage phase that I would get over. We never spoke about it again. I knew it would potentially cause a huge rift in our relationship, and it was better just to go with the flow.

I was 28 years old when I got the diagnosis. That day in the hospital when they finally told us that it was an inoperable brain tumour, I think I was in shock and disbelief. I felt completely numb. I turned to look at Mum, she had her head in her hands, and I could tell she was praying. For almost three years after that I went through multiple rounds of treatment, in the hope that it would buy me more time. Time all of a sudden took on so much importance, because I knew how limited it might be. Mum kept telling me that God was good and if we just kept praying, he would make it all better. Spoiler alert: that’s not what happened.

Losing your hair as a young woman is so much harder than you think it’s going to be. I never realised how much my identity was tied to my appearance, and how my hairstyle was almost an expression of my personality. I felt so exposed and vulnerable when I first lost my hair. My friends were all super supportive and bought me a selection of pretty head scarves and beanies. At one point I even tried a wig, but it just seemed wrong somehow, and uncomfortable to wear. What hit me just as hard was the nausea and fatigue that came after each treatment. There were many days where I just couldn’t get out of bed. After the third round, I made the decision to stop treatment. I had accepted that I was never going to get better and I didn’t want to live my remaining days this way. It took Mum months to come to terms with it. She kept saying that no matter what, God would look after me, and that the church community were praying for me. Somehow none of that gave me a sense of peace, instead it felt like an obligation to keep going, and I no longer felt like I could. As the pain got worse and my body and brain just seemed to be slowly shutting down on me, I started to worry about how bad it was going to get, and how it would all end.

I had suppressed the thought of voluntary assisted dying for a very long time. Having grown up in a religious community, the idea felt so conflicting, even if I did have doubts about the religious beliefs I had been raised with. But even more confronting for me was what Mum would think. It’s impossible not to consider how the people you love will view your choice and how it might impact them. When I finally got the courage to tell Mum that I had discussed the possibility of voluntary assisted dying with my doctor, I was not prepared for the reaction I got. We were at Mum’s place having dinner, she made lasagna, one of my favourites. When I told her she just looked at me in disbelief. She spent the next hour arguing with me and telling me that I didn’t have the right to do that, only God could make that decision. When she finally told me that if I went through with it she would never forgive me, I was devastated and I just got up and left. We didn’t speak for weeks. The next time I saw Mum was at a birthday lunch for a good friend from the church. She acted like our conversation had never happened; it was clear she had assumed I would never actually go through with it. Just like the time I questioned my religious beliefs as a teenager, we never spoke about it again and for a brief time I decided it would just be best to go with the flow.

I just couldn’t stop thinking about it though, and I was still struggling daily with the conflict in my own mind. Even on a good day it was now becoming harder to think clearly, and I was finding it difficult to make sense of it all. I knew my Mum’s religious beliefs would never allow her to accept that I wanted to end my own life. Worse still she believed that any pain or suffering that I experienced was God’s will, and there was a good reason for it. This is supposedly the very same God who allowed me to get terminal cancer at the age of 28, before I had even truly started living my life. A few months after I had told Mum over dinner, the clarity I had been seeking did come. I realised that I didn’t want to leave it to God. In my opinion, if he did exist, he’d made some shitty choices, and now I was the one who had to live with them. Despite the close relationship I had with my Mum, and how much I loved and respected her, I had to let go of what she wanted and realise that ultimately what mattered most at the end of life was what I wanted. This time it had to be my choice, and it had to happen my way. It was also going to have to happen quite quickly, before I was no longer capable of making that choice.

There were times where I felt inklings of doubt that it was the right thing to do, and I worried about how Mum would cope. I desperately wanted to be able to say goodbye in person, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that I had made the decision to go through with it. I knew that Mum would just try to convince me not to. I couldn’t bear to see her break down again, or for her to tell me how I was breaking her heart and going against God’s wishes. I never wanted to hurt her like that, but I had to do this for me. I wanted to end my life with dignity, not lying in a hospital bed having lost control of both my mind and body. I desperately hoped that while Mum might not have agreed with my decision, she would eventually understand the reasons why I did it. I also knew that while she would go through immense grief, she had been through it before, and with support from those around her she would be ok.

I heard my friend Amy come in the front door. I looked over at Charlie who was still watching me from his spot on the fence, and he seemed to nod in acknowledgement. I got up slowly and carefully, because now I had no choice but to do everything that way. My body and my brain just wouldn’t let me move any faster. I went inside and put my empty cup in the sink. Amy walked into the kitchen and with a gentle smile on her face asked if I was ready. She wasn’t asking me if I was ready to go out to lunch or to watch a film like she normally would. I nodded but told her I just needed a little more time. So, we sat at the kitchen table and talked about all kinds of stuff, mostly reliving all of the best memories of our almost 20 year friendship. I met Amy when I started high school. She had always been such a great friend. I could always be myself with her, and never felt the need to hide or pretend. If someone was going to be there with me at the end, I wanted it to be her, and I was so grateful that she had agreed.

As the sun started to go down, I knew it was the right time. Today was going to be the day, and that gave me a strange sense of relief, like a weight had been lifted. I no longer felt conflicted; I felt at peace. Amy followed me into the bedroom. I sat down on the edge of the bed and put the letter I had written to Mum on the bedside table. The letter wasn’t an attempt to convince her that I had done the right thing, but just to say goodbye and let her know that I loved her. I breathed deeply and took the medication. I lay down, holding Amy’s hand and closed my eyes on what would be my last beautiful day.