I’ll call her Hazel – because she didn’t give me permission to tell her story. If I had asked, though, I’m satisfied that she would have happily agreed.
Hazel was 78, and dying of lung cancer. Though hospice had been able to keep her largely pain-free, she was terrified of the possible end-stage symptoms of her disease and had chosen to use the California End of Life Option Act to control her dying. It was early afternoon on the day she had chosen to die. Hazel had said her goodbyes to family – mostly nieces and nephews in other states – and her two best friends had come to be with her at the retirement condo where she had lived for more than a decade.
Everything Will Be All Right
In the morning I had come by to help arrange things as she wanted. We put a CD player in a nearby corner, with a selection of her favorite classical music. We opened the window to a cool San Francisco breeze, and propped her up on big pillows. She wanted to go over some documents with the two friends one more time, so I left the anti-nausea and other medications with them and went to get some lunch.
Around 3:00 I returned, as planned. I asked Joan, another volunteer who is a retired nurse, to go with me because she’d met Hazel and the two had become friends. Hazel wanted to die in the late afternoon.
This Is Why
When Joan and I walked in, the two friends were seated at the kitchen table, patiently preparing the medication. “She’s already pretty groggy,” they said, “but she wants to see you!” So we went on down the hallway to Hazel’s bedroom.
She was still propped up – leaning a little but comfortably upright. Music was playing, the breeze was ruffling the curtains and drifting over her bed. Hazel looked up and flashed a beatific smile at Joan and me as we entered the room.
“Oh, wonderful!” she said. “You’re here. Now everything will be all right.”
And this is why I serve, with joy and gratitude, as an EOLCCA volunteer.
A lifelong newspaper and magazine writer, EOLCCA Board Member Fran Moreland Johns has published fiction, nonfiction, and several books. Her focus on end-of-life issues includes many volunteer years, numerous articles and one book, Dying Unafraid. She holds a BA in Art from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, and currently blogs at Medium.com and franjohns.net. Her short story collection, Marshallville Stories, was released in April.
