The sun’s rays shimmered through the trees when my mom told me she intended to travel to Vermont to end her life instead of succumbing to the cancer proliferating in her lungs. She said she didn’t want to suffer or burden me, my brother, my father, and her sister.

Her words, uttered casually on a beautiful spring afternoon, pierced me. My grief – barely contained in the wake of her unexpected diagnosis – bubbled over, and I fought the tears threatening to spill down my cheeks. I had assumed she would die at the home she shared with my father, with hospice offering pain relief, and her family surrounding her. I typically weigh words before speaking, and it often takes me days to find the right ones. Yet this moment required an immediacy to convey to her that I needed to be with her during the suffering to come, and that there can be meaning in the suffering all human beings experience, including Jesus when he walked among us.

My mom, although spiritual, does not share my Catholic faith. From previous conversations, I knew she did not see a marked difference between waiting for God to take her and her deciding when she had had enough. Unlike me, she did not view assisted suicide as tantamount to murder or worry about the consequences of choosing to end her life. I did not want to watch my mom swallow medicine that would kill her. I could not, in good conscience, journey with her to Vermont. But I didn’t want to anger her in refusing one of her final wishes. I don’t like to anger anyone, let alone the woman I love most in the world. I wondered if my dad, brother, and aunt would follow her wish if I refused. Would I say goodbye and watch them drive her away, or would she phone me to say goodbye and then leave for Vermont?

My mom’s Stage IV lung cancer diagnosis was a complete shock. She did not smoke, and she spent her retirement on the pickleball court. All of my grandparents lived at least into their eighties, with one reaching one hundred. My mom was seventy-two, and my youngest son was seven. Until her diagnosis reduced our future together to mere months or a handful of years, I had assumed my mom would remain one of my closest confidants and be present at my sons’ athletic events, recitals, confirmations, and weddings.

After her diagnosis, I strove to make our moments together meaningful. We don’t see each other often, since I live in Pennsylvania and she in Massachusetts. I had planned the hike at Shingletown Gap near my home to be a rare time for us to spend together and admire the blooming mountain laurel. Instead, she was sharing her plans for ending her life.

I wanted my mom to understand that even as her body failed her, she had intrinsic value as a human being. My mom is a Martha on steroids, and she despised how Jesus praised Mary for sitting at his side while Martha prepared supper. My mom seldom accepts help when she gathers our family to serve us homemade pasta and raviolis. After fifteen years of asking what I could bring to Thanksgiving, she permitted me to make the cranberry sauce. I suspected my mom sought assisted suicide out of a guttural fear of losing her autonomy and becoming dependent on others.

Yet, making ourselves vulnerable in our weaknesses enables us to experience profound love and grace. My grandmother experienced that love when she was dependent on her family and home hospice nurse, as my then-young boys were on my husband and me. During the last week of her life, my grandmother and I looked at photographs and reminisced. I told her I would strive to provide the same unconditional love to my boys she had given me. That week with her was a blessing I treasure.

Assisted suicide offers the dying a mirage of control, and it eliminates physical suffering on one’s own terms. In wanting to avoid becoming a burden to us, my mom sought to shield us from her suffering and ours. I needed her to understand I would suffer more knowing she was unwilling to permit us to suffer with her and to accompany her in her dependence until God called her home. In determining that she was a “burden” to us, she was taking away our ability to provide compassionate care. She also was asserting that her life only had worth when she was productive.

I told her I hoped to care for her as she had cared for my brother and me when we were young and that I viewed journeying with her at the end as a privilege. I said that my husband had promised I could stay in Massachusetts with her at the end. I promised we would surround her as she prepared to enter eternity. I also said I felt a moral obligation to be present at her natural death, and I didn’t want to compromise my beliefs in aiding her travel to Vermont. I told her I would grieve far more if she swallowed pills.

“I can’t imagine living in this world without you in it as it is, and losing you will be so much harder if you go to Vermont,” I said.

I begged her to reconsider. My mom listened, and she agreed to mull over my words. We continued our hike, and we spoke of other things. I attempted to swallow my grief.

After our hike, I reached out to my dad and brother. They voted against assisted suicide for the terminally ill when it was on the Massachusetts ballot in 2012. My dad, an eternal optimist who avoids difficult conversations, predicted my mom would beat her cancer. When I pressed him, he said he doubted she’d follow through with it. My brother believed my mom wanted to exert control, as she always had. He told me he didn’t want to aid her in ending her life either and said he would ask her to reconsider.

My mom called me three months later and said she had changed her mind based on her conversations with my brother and me. I thanked her and reassured her that we would accompany her and care for her with compassion at the end. I agreed not to take measures to prolong her life.

Two and a half years have passed, and my mom – thank God – is still with us. It took me a year to stop mourning the twenty years I anticipated we would still have together. Through prayer, I have felt God’s presence in my sadness. Slowly, I am accepting my mom will go home sooner than I want. In the meantime, I am grateful for the time with her. We talk often on the phone, and we have visited each other more. I remain hopeful that when her medicine stops working, she will allow us to accompany her to experience the gifts the living and the dying can offer each other. I pray, too, that she ultimately will find peace in waiting for God to call her home.

I worry, though, that my mom’s fears of suffering and being dependent on others will entice her to travel to Vermont once her medication stops working. I worry, too, that others with terminal illnesses who fear dependence, suffering, and burdening their families may feel compelled to pursue assisted suicide. Our culture too often does not prioritize care, compassion, and being present to one another.

Since our conversation, the number of states allowing assisted suicide has grown, with thirteen states and Washington, DC, allowing it and an additional seven states considering it. The laws are passed out of a genuine desire to alleviate pain and suffering. In explaining her intent to sign assisted suicide legislation in New York, Governor Kathy Hochul wrote, “My mother died of ALS, and I am all too familiar with the pain of seeing someone you love suffer and being powerless to stop it. Although it was an incredibly difficult decision, I ultimately determined that with additional guardrails agreed upon with the legislature, this bill would allow New Yorkers to suffer less – to shorten not their lives, but their deaths.”

Yet the data on people choosing assisted suicide remains troubling. People who received assisted suicide in Oregon in 2024 listed loss of autonomy as their top concern. Total dependence on others is frightening. Being vulnerable, though, is part of being human, and love can flourish when the dying allow their families, friends, and hospice professionals to provide compassionate care and affirm their worth.