When “Good Enough” Is Not Good Enough At All

Our friend, GW Law Professor Naomi Cahn, has shared with us a recent essay by her long-time friend, Cindy Schweich Handler, who writes of the death of her mother-in-law.  This essay presents an important counterpoint to the lawsuit that Becky Morgan reports on today for our Blog, about a California lawsuit that attempts to challenge California’s physician-assisted suicide law.

Ms. Handler writes with sensitivity — and disagreement — about the decision, at age 86, of her mother-in-law to end her own life:

Ellen is dying the way she lived: actively, with a lot of input. At 86, like so many of her contemporaries, she suffers from multiple maladies: a slow-growing leukemia called CLL; a recent mini-stroke; spinal stenosis that pains her legs and numbs her hands; recurring bouts of intestinal distress that leave her dehydrated and housebound. The ailments are awful and life-disrupting, but none of them are finishing her off. She doesn’t want to acclimate herself to wheelchairs, live-in aides and other affronts to her independent self-image. What she wants is to not treat her symptoms, to voluntarily stop eating and drinking, and to die.

 

While her pronouncement that she’s “had a good run” has left Harry and me sidelined with shock, our eldest son, Ted, understands….

 

Ted finds Ellen an excellent palliative-care doctor near her New Jersey retirement community who consults with the two of them for hours, making sure the patient isn’t suffering from a temporary, treatable depression. The doctor conference-calls with Harry and his two siblings, and they affirm that they all want what she wants. The Do Not Resuscitate and more detailed Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment forms are filled out and displayed prominently on her dining room table. Jennifer, who has experience in these situations, is available, and she can be at Ellen’s side 24/7. Everything is in place.

 

Then, a complication: Ellen’s independent living community prohibits outside aides from working there. For my mother-in-law to die in a hotel or apartment rented for the occasion is unthinkable to me. Harry and I are empty-nesters, with a third-floor suite that’s quiet and private. It makes sense that she should die in the guest room above our bedroom.

Although Ms. Handler and her husband provide Ellen her last place of hospice and palliative care, Ms. Handler doesn’t embrace Ellen’s plan:

What I don’t understand, why I have such a powerful case of cognitive dissonance, is her timing. Her retirement-home friends always remark on how she holds court in the dining hall after meals. Neat stacks of the Economist top her end table. She goes on field trips to museums, sees movies before I do. Surely she wants to stick around to see more graduations, or at least to find out what happens with the whole Donald Trump thing.

She suggests Ellen has more “good-enough years” left in her.   But, as the essay explains, good enough is not good enough for a woman of Ellen’s steely strength and approach to life.

For the full account, I recommend “I didn’t like it, but this was the death she chose,” from the Washington Post. Thank you, Naomi, for sharing this timely essay, and to  Ms. Handler for her own emotional strength in writing it.  The comments appearing on the Washington Post website are also important reading.