End of life issues can be complicated. I remember my grandmother spending the majority of her later years yearning to “go ‘home’ and be with Jesus” only to discover that during her final moments, she seemingly wanted to live.
Her death was long and hard. I recall walking into her nursing home, wondering what that awful sound was. Turns out, it was my grandma trying to breathe. She struggled all night and finally passed away the next morning. Her face didn’t resemble the woman I knew, although the undertaker pretty much restored her for the funeral.
That horrid death mask haunts me to this day. I expected more peace at her final moment considering she was a life long Christian. And when I say “Christian” I’m talking a Bible thumping, evangelist donating, tract passing, witnessing at any moment, “it” comes up in every conversation type Christian.
But I digress.
I couldn’t help but think of Grandma when I saw this story:
In a case of doctor-assisted suicide, two deaf Belgian twins were euthanized after the pair learned they were going blind, multiple news reports said.
Woah. They voluntarily ended their lives. That’s quite a novel concept in these parts.
The deaf Belgium twins who were euthanized were identified as Marc and Eddy Verbessem, 45. They died from lethal injection last month at Brussels University Hospital. Reports of the twins’ death surfaced Monday.
They decided to end their lives after they discovered they were going blind. Since they were already deaf and highly reliant on each other for their daily needs, blindness would have made their lives difficult.
Dirk Verbessem, 46, the deaf twins’ brother, explained to the Telegraph that his siblings did not want blindness to force them to go into an institution. He said they viewed being blind as being unbearable, especially coupled with the fact that the twins have been deaf since birth.
“Their great fear was that they would no longer be able to see each other. That was for my brothers unbearable,” Dirk Verbessem told the British tabloid. “They lived together, did their own cooking and cleaning. You could eat off the floor. Blindness would have made them completely dependent. They did not want to be in an institution.”
So what was the moment of death like?
“They had a cup of coffee in the hall”, he said. “It went well and [was] a rich conversation. Then the separation from their parents and brother was very serene and beautiful. At the last, there was a little wave of their hands and then they were gone.”
While I don’t think Grandma would have opted for a death like this, I take comfort in knowing my final moments could be far more serene than hers.
