Goodbye, from Gillian Bennett

Dear Editor,                                
I will take my life today around noon. It is time.  Ever so gradually at first, much faster now, I am turning into a vegetable.
There comes a time in the progress of dementia, when one is no longer competent to guide one’s own affairs.
I could vegetate for perhaps ten years in hospital, costing over $50,000 per year. Nurses who had thought they were embarked on a meaningful career would find themselves changing my diapers and reporting on the physical changes of an empty husk. I see this as ludicrous and wasteful.
I am giving up nothing that I want by committing suicide.
I wish that the medical profession could mandate, through sensitive and appropriate protocols, the administration of a lethal dose of Nembutal to end the life of an elderly or terminally ill patient, in accordance with her Living Will.
But Canadian and U.S. law make it a crime for anyone to assist a person committing suicide - so I will take the Nembutal unaided. My husband, I’ll bet, will then hold me in his arms until I lose consciousness.
Today, now, I go cheerfully and so thankfully into that good night. I need no more. It is almost noon.

Gillian Bennett

Note:  Gillian Bennett took her own life at 11:30 a.m. on August 18, on Bowen Island. She is survived by her husband and two children who will miss her greatly.  A longer version of this letter is posted at www.deadatnoon.com.