Killing oneself successfully is not something one can practise
I have decided not to obtain an injunction against Guy and this book. Obviously I could bring a successful action against him for defamation, slander and probably identity theft so ridiculously inaccurate is his portrayal of me and dear Stanley. Stanley has been pitilessly characterised as a comic drunk and a bit of an idiot, shuffling along in bedroom slippers. Damn it, he is 90 years old. A true picture of him could be just as amusing, but Guy seems to prefer cheap shots. His trouble is he can’t see a belt without hitting below it.
I am confident that anyone reading this book will have well understood that the portrayal of my husband and me is a bizarre caricature.
It is a shame not to be taking Guy to court, for in a case as egregious as this, a custodial sentence would certainly be appropriate. I would enjoy sending him bad reviews of TIME TO GO in prison. But jailing Guy for his cruelty and idiocy, though tempting, is not the priority here.
Instead, I will just say F… you, Guy, and continue to the main point.
This book was to open up the question of dying and in particular my own pre-planned affair and possibly that of others’. Indeed I am old, well only 87, and do bear the bruises that always go with longevity, but nevertheless possess a mind.
I am a woman who stood up against the things that I considered to be wrong, sometimes a perceived injustice and sometimes a very real one. I used to think these things happened because I was a woman and because when James, my first husband, died, I was on my own. I really had to fight hard to achieve even very small things. My life soon became full of endeavours of every sort, sometimes so that I should not have too much time to think.
In this case it is so utterly reasonable, that which I want.
I am simply wanting to go while the going is still good, when I can be responsible for my life and my death. There is such an ugliness to old age, infirmity, incontinence, wiping and washing, loss of memory, dependency, lack of intimacy, failing eyesight, hearing, thinning hair and bossy nurses removing all the gin bottles from under our beds. And the tonic and lemon.
I have read constantly about suicides, but the public is rarely told of the means by which these are achieved. Like a good Girl Guide I realised that I had to be prepared for any event. There would be no time to start ordering pills on Google when the ambulance was on its way to take my broken body to an asylum for the insane.
Why the hell should anyone tell me I do not have the right to dispose of myself when and how I wish? I do not believe in God and in the same way I do not think that MPs, Lords, the judiciary and the Church (and according to Archbishop Welby only 15 per cent of the British people are considered to be true Christians) should be permitted to arbitrate on my death. How did we get here? Why shackle doctors with an oath conceived centuries ago that now does not carry much relevance? In the light of the progress medicine has made today, keeping a lot of us alive for far too long with a rotten quality of everyday living is senseless. Why should they be fettered from doing what any human would wish to do for someone longing to quit? Is it beautiful, laudable and good to keep someone alive in crucial pain, or semi-conscious on the end of a feeding drip, morphine or an oxygen mask?
And here I am not just speaking of illness and pain as a reason for death. I am talking about the time to live and the time to die. I am asking on behalf of those of us who have lived fine lives and do not want to end up in a care home, no longer in charge of making decisions for ourselves. It is quite enough to have to cope with the fight against growing incapacity. (In my case arthritis and an inability to walk properly), without having a stranger dictate to me how to manage my release. We could all too easily decide to take the decision long before strictly necessary, just in case we might not be capable of organising casting-off while drowning in a storm. My choice. Our choice.
Is anyone there who really cares? Is it a good idea to force us to make what might be a bosh shot with a DIY kit? After all, killing oneself successfully is not something one can practise. Does anyone really believe that giving help to a person looking for a decent exit is an unkind move? Or evil? Do they begin to understand our predicament? Is it that they follow the Bible? They should cast a glance at the Book of Leviticus. Oh dearie me, the Bible says that I can sell my daughter into slavery, but by careless oversight forgets to tell me how much silver I should ask for her. Or is it some even more ancient belief, that to end your own life is a sin? Tell me why I should be a victim of a bunch of pious people who do not know me, or me them, people who perhaps have not given quite enough thought to their decisions concerning pain and grief and desperation. Why do they have the right to dictate to me or to punish anyone else who does decide to manage their own death or help them to their end?
We have, most of us, moved on in so many matters: homosexuality, women’s rights, education, science, crimes against humanity, genocides, and abortion (I could go on), but why not move on with this?
They argue a planned death might – I say might – encourage perhaps, a family to take a path to hasten the death of a relative in order to benefit themselves in some way – possibly for cash reasons or maybe even the repossession of a house. If those MPs who debate this subject cannot even provide enough houses and hospitals for the country, how the hell may they be allowed to pontificate on death? I would argue that most people know and understand exactly what they are doing when making their plans. And I ask indeed precisely how many families would be able to take a pecuniary advantage of their relatives in comparison to the number of people who want to quit dependency and pain?
A discrete and private consultation with a provider of drugs could help. But that is currently utterly unlikely, and while a trawl across the Internet might more easily yield some interesting information if you could only trust it, a simple plastic bag could do the trick but is horrendous to contemplate. It comes to something when I have to start sizing up precipitous roads (lots round here) while contemplating Thelma and Louise.
A wish for justice has been, I now realise, a big motivator in my life; I was a mouse in my early years. It was only on the death of my first husband, when he was 40, leaving me a clueless widow at 38, and his four children, that I woke up to realise that if something needed to be done, I had to do it myself. No one else was about to help.
I always had a project ahead of me and when that stops I want to stop too. Campaigning and organising has been the blessing of my life and I have learnt so much. I cannot envisage waking up to a day without at least a bit of a cause, or something needing to be done. But this is not about me. This is very much about another new campaign. A fight, I might say, to the death and for the death.
I have succeeded in pulling the strings of life together through sheer persistence, and I am not prepared to give up now. Like a dog I cannot give up a bone. I have spent a great life, winning most of the way. But my wish now is to go out at the top, dying as I myself will plan – but if it is the least bit of comfort to anyone I can assure you the moment has not arrived.
What am I waiting for? I need time to look through the all the photographs that reflect a wonderful life, to finish mending a couple of things, to plan the planting of the terrace for next year, to order paints and varnishes and glue so that I can give my grandson’s girlfriend some lessons in china restoration, and to write another book. So I can promise you, not just yet.
Only when I feel no more relish for life and its challenges will I enter the final straight. But it needs to be organised in advance. It really is an important subject, and as my aunt used to say, so often, if you want a job done properly, then you must do it yourself. But most people do not have the means or the knowledge.
Discussing various thoughts on death, and the way to achieve success when the time comes was spurred on by the thoughts of the growing incapacity of my cherished husband, and understanding that maybe I was not going to be strong enough to look after him myself. Then damn and blast it, with my own dodgy health, it might turn out to be the other way round. All too complicated. To dream of a mutually timed decease was, of course, totally impractical, though one does read in the papers, from time to time, that a happy old couple have success in dying together. But tell me how. Stanley and I held a comforting fantasy, one about which we needed to argue and play games and think of hilarious situations, in order to take our minds off the dreaded reality of one of us being left alone.
However, Guy’s book has proved to me that I definitely have yet another challenging campaign ahead with which to tussle. I am ready for the fight. Even if it means combining forces and co-operating with my vexatious and ill-mannered son.
Justice for all says Chairman Susie.