An Artist's Exit Interview

An artist agrees to an "exit interview" to discuss her upcoming death from cancer as an artist and an activist.

When I became aware that I really was dying, and it was going to be soon. How could I die in a way that would alleviate pain and allow me to say goodbye to people that I want to, and make sure all my artifacts are in order? With the assistance of a physician, I could be able to take the pills that will put me out of my suffering and pain. People do their best, they are working with me in palliative care, but it can take thirty minutes to an hour to get the interventions that alleviate the suffering. And the suffering is pretty awful. I can’t say I’m not yelling, wanting to jump out the window sometimes. In New York State, it is illegal for somebody to assist me in dying.

The Debate Over Medically-Assisted Suicide In Maryland

The Maryland General Assembly is considering an End-of-Life Option Act for the fourth time in as many years. If passed, the legislation would allow terminally ill individuals, who have been given six months or less to live, the option to legally end their lives with a lethal dose of prescribed medicine.

Supporters of the bill say that individuals should have the right to end their lives with dignity and exercise control over the final stage of their life. A 2015 poll showed that 60 percent of Marylanders support a “death with dignity” option for terminally ill patients.

Opponents of the measure have argued that in addition to the moral and ethical considerations, public safety could be put at risk if the legislation passes. Concerns have been raised that the new law could be used to target people with disabilities, or that a patient could be deemed mentally fit, but actually be unable to make a sound decision on this issue.

Death With Dignity?

Make a Plan for a Good Death

The peculiar problems of modern death — often overly medicalized and unnecessarily prolonged — are no longer abstractions to me. Even though I swim daily and take no medications, somewhere beyond the horizon, my death has saddled his horse and is heading my way. I want a better death than many of those I’ve recently seen.

In this I’m not alone. According to a 2017 Kaiser Foundation study, 7 in 10 Americans hope to die at home. But half die in nursing homes and hospitals, and more than a tenth are cruelly shuttled from one to the other in their final three days. Pain is a major barrier to a peaceful death, and nearly half of dying Americans suffer from uncontrolled pain. Nobody I know hopes to die in the soulless confines of an Intensive Care Unit. But more than a quarter of Medicare members cycle through one in their final month, and a fifth of Americans die in an ICU.

This state of affairs has many causes, among them fear, a culture-wide denial of death, ignorance of medicine’s limits, and a language barrier between medical staff and ordinary people. “They often feel abandoned at their greatest hour of need,” an HMO nurse told me about her many terminally ill patients. “But the oncologists tell us that their patients fire them if they are truthful.”

I don’t want this to be my story.

She tells us to have a vision, understand our health, and make sure we have a tribe and caregivers. Well worth reading and saving.

How to Prepare Yourself for a Good End of Life by Katy Butler

No, We Don't Get Over It and That's The Way it Should Be

Love is forever, which means loss is forever, which means grief is forever. It hurts, but it keeps us close.

We will grieve forever because we love forever. There is no end to our love for our child, therefore there is no end to our grief– not in our lifetime, anyway. We will grieve forever. We will never get over it.

The presumption is that since our child’s death happened years ago– a presumably finite event– how are we not over it by now? As if child loss is something you can get over– likening it to something far less horrific that can be conquered if you only try hard enough, think positively, or pull yourself up by the bootstraps. As if it’s a hurdle you can easily jump over, or a roadblock you can simply go around and then move on. As if sunshine, rainbows and unicorns will magically greet you once enough time has passed and you cross into “I’m-over-it” land. This may work for other things, but not child loss.

It’s time to bust a long-standing myth about child loss and grief. There is no getting over it. Child loss is not something you get over. Ever. You don’t get over watching the living, breathing piece of your heart and soul, your flesh and blood, your child– die. It’s simply not. possible. to get over the death of your child. You will grieve the death of your child until your last breath.

Why We Will Never Get Over It

When Grief Feels Like Anger

“I’m just so angry all the time, and I don’t like it. I hate how angry I am.”

I looked into her eyes and replied, “I’m not sure you’re angry. Have you ever considered that you might be grieving, that you may be in mourning right now?”

“Wow,” she said. “I never thought about it that way. That’s exactly what it feels like.”

Almost immediately she could name everything she was lamenting the loss of.

Grief looks a lot like anger on the outside.

You’re Not Angry Right Now, You’re Grieving

Poem: House Grief

I must've ordered the house grief.
That full-bodied red.
Tastes like rust, is cheap and everywhere.

Ann Alder Walsh