I have been around a lot of death.

For years, because of anxiety and OCD, I wrote down the names of everyone who died and the details of how they died. I was terrified that if I didn’t record it all, I would forget them. As I sit down to write this, I realize I can no longer remember exactly how many there were. I think that’s sad. I also think it might be a sign that I am healing. Over the last decade I have lost my mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother-in-law, a grandma, an aunt, an uncle, a cousin, and my husband. Death has been a constant companion in my life. It has sat at hospital bedsides beside me. It has occupied empty chairs at holiday dinners. It has forever rearranged my identity, how I see myself, and how others see me. And because of that, I have seen death happen in very different ways. The death that changed my understanding of dignity happened in 2016.

My mother-in-law, Lynn, was dying of metastatic breast cancer. When she was first diagnosed, I was inexperienced with death and dying. I wanted information, and details. I wanted to know everything so I could be prepared for anything. Lynn was a very private person and had raised two boys who didn’t ask questions. At the time that frustrated me. I had opinions and I shared them. If I knew then what I know now, I would have stayed quiet. Everybody has the right to navigate their illness in their own way.

So when the call came that she was in the hospital, that she was in septic shock, we went in blind. I followed her husband and sons. But try as I may, I could not stop myself from asking all the questions. It was not the first time I had sat in one of those small quiet rooms while doctors explained a dire situation. Years earlier my own mother had been placed on a ventilator and there were many quiet rooms. Ultimately, she recovered and came home, but I will always remember my first time being directed to the little room.

Lynn was going to die. I didn’t have to read between the doctors’ ever so carefully selected lines. She was given the large corner room on the palliative floor. The room with extra chairs for visitors. Treatment stopped. Pain medication continued. We were told it could be hours, maybe days.

Doctors are careful with predictions. I have yet to meet one (and I have met A LOT) that is straightforward about death and timelines. I get it. That’s why for me it was important to always be on high alert. Watch their body language, look into their eyes, ask direct questions. Lynn lived for eleven more days. Eleven. And nothing in the years since has come close to what we all, including she, experienced in that week and a half plus a day.

It quickly became obvious that Lynn, the woman, the mother, the wife, the friend, was no longer there. Occasionally her eyes would open, but there was nobody behind them. The pauses between breaths became longer and longer. The sound of those breaths became louder and louder. This was not Lynn. This was a shell. And now it was a show.

I had to tell my husband to stop coming every day because I could see what it was doing to him. Her sister and I sat together for hours. Her brothers would stop by before work.Eleven days. Eleven days of watching a body continue after the person had already left. And during those eleven days my husband, Matt, and I had many conversations wondering how could this end sooner? Was there anything we could do to make it end sooner? How could this be over for her now?Until you have witnessed someone leave a body, their body, behind, it is difficult to understand. Until you have counted seconds between breaths and that gap grew larger and larger until it could be counted in minutes. Until you have watched someone lose every ounce of independence, privacy and dignity. You simply don’t know.

At the time, medical assistance in dying (MAID) either didn’t exist or was so new that nobody ever discussed it with us. I remember wishing there was another option. I never imagined that years later my husband would face that choice himself. When Matt was diagnosed with melanoma, he handled it very differently than I did. His first year was surprisingly good. He took targeted therapy at home with relatively few side effects. His business was doing well. We travelled. He took life one day at a time while I spent every day and night researching. I knew every clinical trial, every treatment option, side effect and survival statistic. I plugged his information into life expectancy calculators so often I could practically do it in my sleep. I was NOT going to be surprised again. I am the type of person whose brain is constantly scanning for danger and Matt was the opposite. He only ever expected the best while I was preparing for the worst.

On November 16, 2022, we learned that the cancer had spread. Bones. Liver. I knew immediately what it meant. When Matt called me and told me the CT technician was sending him directly to oncology, I knew. He was going to die. I knew it deep within my own healthy bones. He didn’t even consider it. I remember rushing to meet him at the oncologist’s office, sobbing, and him asking me, “Why are you crying, this has nothing to do with cancer.” Yes, he said that—in the oncologist’s office. He genuinely believed he would recover.

So when treatment ultimately failed and his oncologist told us there was nothing left to try, I was devastated, but I wasn’t surprised. Matt was genuinely shocked. He had never let himself consider this would be the outcome. It hadn’t crossed his mind. We left that appointment in silence, down the hall, the elevator, through the cafeteria. It felt like yesterday we sat with his brother and father, taking a break from watching his mother die upstairs. It felt like yesterday that I ran toward that elevator at 2 am to get to my father who sat in a room with my mother’s dead body. And wasn’t it yesterday that we followed the ambulance to the emergency department and then to that little room where they told us Matt’s dad had a massive heart attack?

As we walked through the hospital doors to the parking lot, he spoke first. “I’m never walking through these doors again.” And he didn’t.

A few days later I attended a follow-up appointment without him, expecting to discuss palliative care, and next steps. I went in wanting someone to tell me exactly what would happen next, and when. What I had not prepared for and wasn’t expecting was a discussion that started with: “Now, I have to tell you this. In Canada, we have access to MAID.” I don’t remember much after that. I remember hearing that some people chose to die in hotel rooms. I remember hearing that some people chose funeral homes. Mostly I remember thinking: How am I supposed to go home and tell my husband that he can choose the hour of his death? I immediately called his best friend. Maybe he could tell me how to do it. No. This was uncharted territory for all of us.

The drive home took less than two minutes and when I walked into the bedroom, he saw it on my face immediately. I cried as I told him there were no trials, no miracle treatment, no next step. I told him he could stay home. I told him I would take care of him. Nurses would come to the house, we would get equipment and everything would be ok. What a strange thing to say to a dying person. And then I told him about MAID, and for the second time that day, I was surprised by what came next. He got out of bed, asked me for socks, and asked if I wanted to go for lunch. Lunch? He hadn’t left the house in weeks. But suddenly he was moving.

Calm. Purposeful. Relieved.

As we drove around that afternoon, he explained something he had never fully said before. His greatest fear wasn’t death. His greatest fear was dying the way his mother died. Waiting for every breath. Lying in a hospital bed surrounded by loved ones who were suffering. Matt’s body had betrayed him. He had lost control and this was a way to get it back.

MAID wasn’t a difficult decision for him. It wasn’t even really a decision. It was immediate relief. For the first time since November, he felt in control of his own life again. Everything changed after that. People sometimes assume choosing MAID means giving up. Our experience was the opposite. It gave Matt the freedom to live intentionally. He wanted a party. We had two. I remember telling his oncologist who called every week that we were going to do a birthday party. She asked when his birthday was. “February 19th,” I told her. “I would do it sooner rather than later,” she responded. Pardon? This was early February. I understand that doctors can’t predict the exact time someone has to live. But with all my self-educating on the matter, I still believed we had months—I was hoping for summer. Now she was insinuating weeks. By the day of his first party, he had begun losing vision in one eye and we had to get him an eye patch. The pirate jokes were endless, his sense of humour back and intact.

More than two hundred people came to a party we held at a local hall. Some people called it a “Living Funeral.” We called it a birthday party. It was a celebration of his life. Not a “Celebration of Life.” We saw childhood friends, neighbours, people from every job he had ever worked. Friends and family flew in and people stayed all day. To this day it remains one of the most beautiful days of my life. How grateful I was to have met and married this man. Imagine living a life so full that hundreds of people want one last chance to see you.

He had another party at home in the garage with his closest friends who had known each other since childhood. I felt love in that group. I didn’t think about it or appreciate it—I felt its physical presence in my garage.

People often ask what dignity looks like. It looks like that night. It looks like saying goodbye on your own terms. It looks like choosing who you spend your final weeks with. It looks like control. Matt became determined to leave everything organized. He photographed tools to sell on the internet, he closed accounts and dissolved the business. We updated our wills and cleaned out the storage closets. At the time I found it irritating. I remember that he wanted to sharpen all of the kitchen knives. “Seriously? Don’t worry about the kitchen knives.” “They need to be done and you’ll never do it.” “Fine.” I didn’t care about any of it. I wanted more time. Looking back, he was choosing how he would leave. And he wanted me to have sharp kitchen knives. He also ordered several pairs of scissors because I was always losing them. Now I find them everywhere and it cracks me up.

Soon the deterioration would begin and not let up. One day he couldn’t walk upstairs. The next day we moved a bed downstairs. Then we needed a wheelchair. Then a commode. Then a hospital bed. Then he stopped getting out of bed entirely. His palliative care physician had warned me: When changes happen every week, think weeks. When changes happen every day, think days. Days it was. I would have kept taking care of him forever. Three years later I still would. But it wasn’t my choice. I was a passenger. This was his journey. I was simply his witness.

On March 6, he asked me the date. I knew immediately what he was about to say. Two days later, March 8, 2023, two nurses arrived at our house. My son and father left for a few hours. His best friend stood at the foot of the bed. I sat beside him. The nurses explained the process. Matt agreed. He was alert. Capable. Certain.

I remember him asking for deodorant and a clean shirt. That white t-shirt lives in my dresser drawer in a Ziploc bag where I tried to preserve the smell of him for years.

I remember the nurse struggling to find a vein and Matt giving us a look that seemed to say, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Even then, there was humour.

I laid my head against his chest and told him I loved him. That he changed my life. That I am who I am because of him. He told me he loved me too. Then he fell asleep. The nurse had warned us that the first medication might cause a deep breath. The sound instantly reminded me of Lynn. The sound I had listened to for eleven days. My head was on his chest and his heart stopped beating at the same time the nurse announced he was gone. One thing I have learned about grief is that guilt often arrives at the same time. Sometimes grief is the main course and guilt is the side dish. Sometimes guilt becomes the entire meal. I still think about the pedicure my mother wanted before she died. I never took her. I think about leaving the hospital before she passed away. I think about all the things left unsaid after other deaths. But not with Matt.

For the first time in my life, someone I loved died with nothing left unsaid. He saw everyone, said everything. He chose who was there. He chose where he would die. He chose the hour. He did not choose to die. Cancer made that decision. But he chose everything that came after. And for that, I will spend the rest of my life being grateful.

Three years later I would still be taking care of him in that bed if it were my choice. But it wasn’t my choice. I was a passenger. This was his journey. I was his witness. And he died with dignity. Because the greatest gift MAID gave my husband was not death. It gave him control over the one thing cancer had spent fifteen months trying to take away. It gave him dignity.