“His time had not yet come,” wrote one woman on social media, following the failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump. I will not comment on these troubling events, there are people much more qualified than me to do so. However, I wanted to share my thoughts on the hour of our death.
For most of us, it is relatively easy to know our time of birth, either it is written in our vaccination record or our mother told us when telling us the story of our birth. I like to remind my second son that he was born at 11:11 and that it brings good luck. I am not religious, I know nothing about astrology, but I have a few strange superstitions, including making a wish as soon as I see a “mirror hour”. My favorite is midnight, because we also change the date. It has a magical side.
In short, knowing the time we were born is common, but the time of our death remains a mystery throughout our lives. Fortunately, in fact. Imagine if we knew that our death would occur at 1:27 p.m. It would be alienating, every day we would hold our breath until 1:28 p.m. and say to ourselves: “Whew! That wasn’t for today!” We would avoid going out at that time. We would not eat or drink anything to avoid suffocating, we would not take any plane whose route crosses that time on a time zone, etc. We would go crazy, I think. I can’t even imagine the world if, on top of that, we knew the date of our death.
Some of us, however, choose the date and time of our death. I am not talking here about suicide, which is another delicate and complex subject, but rather about medical assistance in dying. Since December 10, 2015, the date the federal law governing this practice came into force, Quebecers have had the right to determine the time of their last breath. Legal, ethical and medical guidelines have been put in place to prevent abuses while allowing people suffering from a serious and irreversible illness to choose to end their suffering if it is persistent and unbearable.
From the beginning of the transpartisan work of the Special Commission on Dying with Dignity, chaired by Maryse Gaudreault and vice-chaired by Véronique Hivon, who would later become the “mother” of the current law on medical assistance in dying, I agreed with the idea of giving people this final option. It seemed entirely logical to me that an adult exhausted by pain and illness could choose to end his or her life on his or her own terms. To this day, I still find the provisions of this law to be fair and relevant.
Thus, each year, a few thousand Quebecers exercise this right, which I dare to call fundamental. Last Wednesday, July 10, at 4:30 p.m., it was my long-time colleague who put an end to his suffering in a palliative care home. Jérôme closed his magnificent blue eyes for good. The entire great artistic family of Montreal mourned his premature death. It must be said that he was special, Jérôme: generous, festive, and deeply in love with artists. He did a lot for our community.
There is nothing trivial for the patient, for his entourage, or for the medical profession when a lethal injection is carried out. Behind each of these deaths there is a personal story and all the empathy in the world cannot change that, only those who live it can measure its real impact. In talking with my friend, a radiation oncologist who practices medical assistance in dying, I understand to what extent it is an act of compassion. For the doctor, it is the patient’s well-being that counts. If the latter wishes to be surrounded, if he wants to listen to music, drink a glass of champagne, we will do everything to ensure that it happens according to his wishes.
With the passing of Jerome and a few other people I knew who also chose to go this way, I realized that for the first time in human history, we could probably think very hard about someone at the very moment of their death. (With the exception, of course, of all forms of execution, which have nothing to do with this subject.)
I simply want to say that today, even without being at their bedside, we now know the moment when some of our friends and relatives die. Knowing that Jérôme would leave that day, from the morning I was filled with a troubled feeling, a mixture of sadness and gratitude. Around 4:20 p.m., I stopped what I was doing, sat on my balcony even though the rain was pouring down and thought back to all our shared moments. Then, at 4:30 p.m., despite my atheism, I looked up at the sky and said in a low voice: “Have a good trip, Jérôme. Rest, my friend, you deserve it.”
My doctor friend whispers in my ear that the time of death is not so precise. It is more a matter of allowing relatives and medical staff to be ready, in a given space and time. If the person who is about to die needs a few more minutes, they will be granted, of course.
I do not know the time of my death. I do not know if I will one day have the courage, even at the end of my strength, suffering and at the end of my life, to choose one. But I think we are very lucky to have access to this right. I thank the legislators for having done this work and I thank the doctors for offering us this very last fundamental help.