When My Time Comes

by Diane Rehm

  L: I was thrilled. I was so pleased that I went down and testified. I told them how I felt and how important I thought it was. And I thought it was just wonderful that our legislature had the guts to do what is not right now the most popular thing to do. So many states haven’t got the courage so far. But I think it’s going to happen.

  D: Why do you think that?

  L: Because it’s the logical and the right thing to do. Sooner or later, some of these legislators, the ones who are so adamantly opposed, are going to have to face it themselves, and they’re going to find out how important it is to be able to die with dignity.

  D: If you were terminally ill, and if you realized in advance that you were not going to get better, do you feel you would have your doctor’s support for how you want to go?

  L: You’ve asked me a tough question because I’m not absolutely sure, but as I’ve said, I’m going to work on my doctors and make them more and more receptive to the idea.

  D: It seems to me that as a former chief of protocol of the United States, you would have the right words to do that.

  L: Well, I’ve talked with my doctor about it and I think he just isn’t…I think so many doctors need to be educated in this. It isn’t part of their medical training. They think their mission, in the days of approaching death, is to keep you alive no matter what. It’s time for them to realize that that’s not what is best for their patients. Even twenty years ago, people died around eighty. Now it’s amazing how many people live to their nineties. It’s important for doctors to rethink what they were taught in medical school, because things have changed.

  D: Looking at you, Lucky, no one would ever guess how close you are to being ninety years old.

  L: I know. I’m healthy. I mean, I’m so lucky.

  D: Where did the nickname Lucky come from?

  L: I got it in college, because I was a very good bridge player. And they all didn’t attribute it to my ability to play bridge; they attributed it to my lucky cards. Everybody called me Lucky, even my mother, finally. It’s a name I love because I really feel that I’m lucky. And I just hope that it’ll extend to the day I’m facing death.

  Benjamin Zide

  SOPHOMORE, DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, GRANDSON OF DIANE REHM

  Benjamin Zide is my grandson. At the time this conversation was recorded, Ben was eighteen years old. He’d come to Washington to spend a part of his spring vacation with me, which totally delighted and flattered me. How many men of Ben’s age want to spend time with their aging grandmothers? But from the time he was a toddler, we have had a wonderful and loving relationship. His mother (my daughter, Jennifer) likes to tell the story that when my late husband and I would visit their family in Boston, Ben would weep uncontrollably when it was time for us to leave. At the time of this recording, Ben was a senior at Concord Academy. He is now an undergraduate at Dartmouth. Before we had this conversation, I had asked his mother’s permission, which she granted.

  DIANE: Ben, I want to talk with you about something. Do you have your iPhone with you?

  BEN: Yeah.

  D: Ben, I’d like you to record our conversation on your iPhone, so you have it, your mother has it, your father has it, and your uncle Dave (my son), Aunt Nancy, and my husband, John Hagedorn, have it, okay? I want everybody to know exactly how I feel about what I’d like at the end of life.

  B: And you want me to record it?

  D: Please. You can start recording now. A few months ago, I came across a perfect paragraph that Anne Morrow Lindbergh had left behind, and her daughter Reeve Lindbergh found after her mother died. It just encapsulated so beautifully what I want for myself. And, Ben, after I read this, if you have questions, we can talk about it. Is that okay with you?

  B: Sounds good to me.

  D: Okay. She wrote, “To my family, my physician, and my hospital: If there is no reasonable expectation of my recovery from mental or physical disability, I request I be allowed to die and not be kept alive by artificial means and heroic measures. I ask that medication be mercifully administered to me for terminal suffering, even if it hastens the moment of my death. I hope that you who care for me will feel morally bound to act in accordance with this urgent request.”

  So that’s what Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote. And when I read it, I thought, Wow, that’s exactly how I feel. If, for example, I develop Alzheimer’s disease, and know that I have Alzheimer’s, or you begin to notice, I want you to tell me, “DeeDee, you’re failing, you’re losing it a little bit, I can see that.” I want you to tell me that. I want everybody in our family to tell me that. I want to know when I am failing, so that when I reach a point where I know I’m going straight downhill, I want to go peacefully. If I am physically disabled so that I can no longer care for myself, I can no longer feed myself, I can no longer bathe myself or take care of myself in any way, I don’t want to be in a nursing home, I want to die peacefully and quietly.

  Now, I’m going to arrange for that myself, but what I would really like is for the whole family to be here on that last day of my life, so I can be with all of you, together. We will laugh, we will enjoy each other’s company, we will be with each other in happiness, and then I will go into my bedroom and into my own bed and I will pass away. And that will be a very happy moment for me if it can happen that way. And of course I will want John, my husband, to be here as well. He will want to be with me. So are you okay with that?

  B: I’m okay with that.

  D: Do you have any questions you want to ask me?

  B: Yeah. If you are not physically capable of ending your own life, whose responsibility would it be?

  D: By then, my darling, I figure you will be sufficiently trained as a medical expert to know when my end is coming close. And if I have not been able to take care of it myself, I will hope that one of you will be able to help me with that. I so believe in medical aid in dying and my right to choose the time and place of my death that that’s how I’d like it to be. And I hope that if there is any disagreement among any of you that my wishes will prevail and that one of you will be able to help me.

  B: And if you’re physically still capable, but mentally incapable—how are we to determine when your mental incapability is advanced to the degree that you no longer wish to continue?

  D: I think that there will have to be a discussion between you and me, perhaps your mother and me, your uncle Dave and John and me. We will know when the time comes, when it’s so close that I can no longer be of use to myself, to you, to society. We will know when that end comes. And I am asking for love and cooperation and careful judgment on everybody’s part.

  B: Okay.

  D: Ben, I realize everything I’m saying is putting a great deal of responsibility on you because you’re here with me as we film this conversation. And filming it not only for me, but for posterity. I’m eighty-one years old now. Who knows how long I might have. I have no idea. I realize that talking to you this way, when you’re eighteen years old, is putting a lot on your shoulders. How does all this make you feel?

  B: It makes my heart beat a lot faster than I wish it did. I think of losing Bee [his grandfather, John Rehm], who was my greatest mentor and person I looked up to in life. Watching him go physically but not mentally was something I never wish to see again. And then losing my other grandmother to Alzheimer’s is something I wish I never have to see again. So I plan on making sure that however you would like to end is what I support completely. I know both Bee and my grandmother would never have wished to see themselves in the state they were in at the end. And if you don’t want to either, I completely understand. Even though this is an uncomfortable conversation right now, it’s an important one.

  D: You’re right, and I appreciate your putting it that way. Ben, I want your mother and father and Uncle Dave and Aunt Nancy and John all to have this on video. And you mustn’t think of this as sad,
because I keep thinking, This is all part of life. Your grandfather said, “I’m looking forward to the next journey.” I’m convinced there is a next journey, and I want you to think of it in that way as well.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  When I first met Bob Gottlieb in 1996, I had no idea he would be in my life and in my head for the next two decades. From the beginning, he has educated and helped me, not only as a writer but as a guide through this complicated journey called living. I will be ever thankful to have had the good fortune to have him as my editor as well as my friend.

  Sonny Mehta, the head of Knopf, took a chance on me all those years ago, and is once again putting his strength and support behind this book. Since the very early days of my radio career, Paul Bogaards and I have worked together happily and successfully. He has been and continues to be a champion of my work as both broadcaster and writer.

  Special thanks to Marc Jaffee, who helped in every way, including editorially.

  Also at Knopf, my thanks to Lydia Buechler, Susan Brown, Peggy Samedi, Betty Lew, Kelly Blair, and Emily Murphy.

  For Rebecca Kaufman and Alison Brody, I offer gratitude for their taking on so much responsibility for the creation and formation of our podcast, On My Mind. And to JJ Yore, the best manager at WAMU I’ve ever had.

  Finally, Joe Fab and Diane Naughton came to me with the idea of a documentary on the right to die two years ago, and generously allowed me to use many of the transcripts from that documentary to create this book; and Dave Goulding, whose talent as a man behind the camera managed to make me look good.

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