Why a sick woman decided to commit suicide
"I'm going to kill myself today at noon, it's time, dementia is claiming a sacrifice and I'm almost lost, I almost lost my 'I'."
These words were written by Gillian Bennett. The 83-year-old from Canada suffered from dementia and decided on August 18, 2014, to commit suicide. Only her husband Jonathan was at her side and published her farewell letter on the Internet shortly after her death. Since then, the text touches many people and raises again the question of how self-determined ill people are allowed to die.
The letter foreshadows how difficult it is for Gillian to leave her husband, two children, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren behind. At the same time, she is absolutely sure she wants to take this step.
"I've known for three years that I'm demented, it's a progressive loss of my memory and judgment, a creeping, stubborn yet reliable disease," writes Gillian. "Only in small steps, now faster, I develop myself to vegetables, I can only find it difficult, if my granddaughter comes in three days to visit or today."
The former psychotherapist makes it clear that she is not afraid of death: "Each of us is born in a unique way and dies uniquely, I see death as the last adventure with a planned, abrupt end." I know when it's time to to go. " About life she writes: "Life seems like a party to which I was thrown in. At first I was shy and awkward and did not know the rules, I was afraid to do the wrong thing, it turned out that I was there was to enjoy life, but I did not know how. (...) I began to understand that I had to set my own rules and live by them. "
By publishing her farewell letter on the Internet, Gillian wanted to get the topic of death out of the taboo zone. "There are so many things we are obsessed with, we always think we need to get things right, do we bring a bottle of wine or flowers to the party, do I come with jeans and boots, or is that too casual? I make new friends, but we never talk about how we want to die. "
Because it is forbidden to give euthanasia in Canada, her husband Jonathan was not in the room when Gillian was preparing her suicide. But on her last breath he held her hand. "It all happened so suddenly," he told the newspaper "Herald." "After half an hour her eyes were open and her chest was not moving anymore, she looked like she was gone, I waited another half hour and then called the doctor and the police."
Gillian's last words are addressed to her husband: "Today - now - I walk happily and gratefully into the night Jonathan, the brave, the loyalty, the true and the dearest, is with me, I need nothing more."
In the video, the family tells how it was for them to let Gillian go.
