Hold My Hand
In Favor of Voluntary Assisted Dying
‘Hold my hand.’
Her opening was confident and powerful. Tonight was hers. She could see the trophy in her hand, hear the wild applause, feel the triumph. This was a speech from the depths of her heart, delivered with a passion few would ever rival. The depth of her love for her mother, and the strength of her conviction about what was right, was on display tonight for all the world to see.
She would not apologize. She would not criticize the doctor. There would be no blame. She would tell, with pride, what they had done together, and why. And she would defend the rightness of it until her last breath.
She was an excellent public speaker. She had a cabinet filled with trophies. She mentored and taught with confidence. That, in itself, was nothing short of a miracle. She was well into her sixties before she overcame the inferiority complex and shyness that had dominated her entire existence and greatly spoiled her personality, hiding the best parts of her being.
Despite her record of success, she usually mounted the stage trembling and nauseous. But tonight, there was no nervousness. She was here to win. She was here to fight for a cause. She had rehearsed, but this was a speech that needed no rehearsal. It was written without effort, and it would be spoken without fear. And, God willing, it just might drive enough rethinking that her own eventual demise would be as she so desperately wanted it to be.
‘Hold my hand. I want you to help me die.’
The year was 1987. It was April Fools’ Day. In a run-down old cottage in the east section of a country town, an old woman rose from her bed and called out to her daughter.
‘I think I need the doctor,’ she said. ‘I have a bad pain.’
She clutched her side. She doubled over. I helped her back into her bed and hurried to the telephone.
‘Come quickly please, Doctor,’ I begged. And then I returned to sit at my mother’s side and wait.
That old lady was just three months shy of her 102nd birthday, and she was more than ready to depart the mortal world. She had survived more than a century, and the delivery of six children, without sickness, and with a stoicism that few women could hope to rival. She was a powerful woman: a matriarch whose edicts were obeyed without question or compromise, though they were issued ever-so-quietly and gently and rarely with even a hint of spoken threat.
Though schooled for only two short years, Bridget was a woman of impressive intelligence and knowledge. She was well read, and observant; enterprising, resourceful, resilient, and greatly admired. She was womanhood and motherhood personified, and I adored her. Her humble little cottage was a sanctuary, and her wisdom and courage was my inspiration and my strength.
Born in 1885, Bridget (affectionately known as ‘’Biddy’’) had seen change in the world. She often remarked that the extent of change she had witnessed exhausted her. She had lived too long. She had received her telegram from the Queen. She had relished the adoration and applause on that momentous birthday night, and she had partied with spirit. But when the night was done, she was ready to close her eyes for the last time.
The months since then had tested her. Sure, she was used to being tried. Her life had been hard. But she’d always, before, had the energy to meet her demons head on. That energy had deserted her now, but her strength had not. She would depart, today, on her own terms. She had made a pact with her doctor, and he would honor his promise. And she would honor hers to her family and herself. She would die as she lived: with courage, strength and dignity.
The doctor came. ‘Just a little jab, Bridget. It won’t hurt.’
‘She will go to sleep in a few minutes,’ he assured, ‘and she won’t wake. Shortly, she will just peacefully drift away into another world.’
I sat beside my dying mother’s bed. I held her hand. The room smelled faintly musty, but there was no odor of death or dying. There was no death rattle, yet. Biddy’s expression was serene; her pose calm and graceful.
As I gazed about the room, the memories came flooding back. So many chapters written in this little cottage. I spoke often, later, of the pages of memory I visited, and the images I saw. Every page was stamped with a heart and signed with a mother’s love.
I called for the doctor again. He said it wasn’t possible for Bridget to be still living. She was.
‘If you think I am leaving this world without farewelling my son, Doctor…’ she whispered.
Another jab.
He asked how far away my brother was, and he begged me to tell him to hurry. He ordered my mother to lie back and close her eyes. She would not. She sat erect and she gazed with yearning at the window until a familiar figure appeared. And when he entered, she took his hand and whispered, ‘Goodbye, Son’, and then she closed her eyes and was gone.
My mother’s passionate speech, that night, urged the audience to endorse voluntary assisted dying. As she told of her mother’s beautiful, peaceful death, she praised the courageous doctor who acted with compassion.
Her speech was well received, but it did not win. The topic was too contentious. But she spoke with a conviction that compelled many to rethink their beliefs as she pleaded for the right to die as her mother had.
Almost a decade after that speech night, an old woman suffers pain and mental anguish none should endure. My mother begs me to end it as she and the doctor ended her mother’s suffering. I cannot. I kiss her goodbye and I leave her in the hands of doctors who tell me they would love to grant her that last wish, but the law does not permit it. She dies alone and frightened, and I am left broken by the knowledge that I could not be there in her final hours to hold her hand and reassure her of my love.
I have her speech still. I read it often. And I pray that someday, somehow, her wisdom, and that of those who shared her belief, will finally prevail; that the law will be changed to allow us all to die on our own terms, and with dignity. I pray it happens before my time comes, and I can pass as my grandmother did, with my children beside me to hold my hand, while they visit the pages of their memory that I have stamped with a heart and signed with a mother’s love.
Be Open Says;
Everyone can contribute to this Open Poem!
