fifteen missed calls . a life interrupted

This letter began light and easy - until one call stopped me short. Sometimes the surface won’t do. Sometimes we have to go deep. Even when we don’t know how.

Aug 31, 2025

Wherever I hang my hat, or lean my spade, is my home. I set up my writing space. Line up my pens and mascara, make muesli, check the cupboards and the coffee supply, make a plan and then out into the garden I go. I am in Melbourne, now. Australia.

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Today’s TIP.

How I avoid jet lag.

Two days before flying I begin to water load. Over those two days prior to travel I drink heaps of water so I go into the travel fully hydrated. More water than normal. I know I will be dehydrated when I come out the other end so water loading gives my body a good start.
I set my watch to the time zone of my destination as I board the plane to go there. And I never look back to the time that I just left. So if it is 11am as my plane leaves the runway but 7pm where I am going I say yes please to a glass of wine. And I proceed as though I am already in that time zone.
I book a flight that arrives at the far away destination in the morning. When I arrive I gulp in the sunlight. No sunglasses allowed for at least the first 30 minutes. I squint and moan about it but sunlight is magic for resetting my circadian rhythm.
Upon arrival. Stay up all day. No naps. Walk. Tidy. Stay super busy.
Then when evening comes I have a hot shower and I go to bed early and yawn and yawn until I go to sleep.
I have to say I have always found it easier to adjust if I travel North to South. South to North is harder on my brain.

I heard some sad news when I landed in Australia. The flight was 14 hours long and I found 15 missed calls from my godmother on my phone. She is very elderly and when she decides to call she will call and call until I answer.

So I called her back.

Content Note: The following piece includes discussion of assisted death. The story itself is sad but not graphic, and if this is a subject you would prefer to avoid, I warmly thank you for visiting and invite you to stop reading here.

Would you choose assisted death if faced with a painful end.

There is no right answer here. This is not even a question for the faint of heart. I mean, we all try our best not to even think about our approaching demise. I certainly do. I have much too much to do to run around doctors in the pursuit of health. I prefer to eat and walk my way to health. But this is precisely why my godmother was calling. Serious illness had raised its head in her family. She wanted to tell me that her son had died. That he had died on his own terms in his own time. And she was heartbroken and proud. Bereft and comforted. But so sad.

My godmother’s son, has multiple sclerosis; actually - had multiple sclerosis. It was moving at speed through his body. He would have been in his early seventies maybe late sixties. I am not sure of his age. I love his mother deeply but never really knew him. Losing a child of any age is dreadful. Oh no, I said, I am so sorry. I waited for her to continue speaking.

My godmother then told me that he chose to die before the disease paralyzed him completely.

My German godmother was my second godmother. She is in her late eighties now and one of the most important people in my life. Like a pillar or a bridge or a great strong mother tree in my forest. She and I connected when I was in my late twenties. I was a young mother with four young children, recently divorced, motherless. A single mother, slightly (actually a lot) out of control. Before I started teaching, I curated art exhibitions. She was an artist. She is an artist. A painter. I met her when I was photographing an outdoor installation. Our bond was instant and profound. She grounded me. She loves me. This knowledge in itself is life giving - to know a person loves you, loves the worst and the best in you. And to help us explain this incredible familial feeling - we decided to call her my godmother. I guess in a more modern vernacular she is my mentor.

I knew her son had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and I knew it was raging through his body shutting it down. I did not know how fast it had accelerated and that he had decided to die before it got so bad he lost control of his hands and bodily functions.

Below is the beach where my godmother lives: I changed the name of the beach for security reasons.

Multiple sclerosis is a chronic neurological disease. The immune system attacks the myelin that protects the nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord. This breaks communication between the brain and body. MS can move slowly or quickly and each bodies response is different. Some people live with MS for years - my godmothers son was not so lucky.

My godmothers son’s condition was aggressive in every sense of the word. And painful.

For decades my second godmother and her son had been estranged. He had struggled all his life with drinking and drugs, the two deadliest misery cousins. His relationship with his mother, my godmother, was rocky. He would go years without seeing her. He would only get in contact when he needed money. He lost his wife. He lost his son. His house fell into disrepair. Lost to a world of booze and weed and absence.

My godmother is a German immigrant to New Zealand. She and her husband and children came to New Zealand in the late 60’s.

My godmother only spoke of her history growing up as a small child in the war years, occasionally. In little snippets, that pieced together, became an extraordinary story of dichotomy and bravery. Choosing the best of bad decisions. The impossible expectation of good over evil. Right and wrong smudged into the gutter.

The Second World War defined my godmothers family. Her father was imprisoned in Russia because he was a conscripted soldier in the war. He came home seven years later and never spoke of it. Her mother was a great beauty. (As was my godmother). Her husband away, she sang for the troops who were fighting while using her performances for underground activities. The stories read like a terrible dark novel with music and costumes and trunks and trains and flashes of lightening light. My godmother and her sister were little girls with long black hair and wide dark Gypsy eyes. They were sent from their home in a large Munich apartment, their home was the entire floor of an apartment building, to France then to Switzerland to live with an aunt. For safety. Their mother would visit with her entourage and the trunks of clothes.

My godmother told me stories. Of her mother and her movements and their travels through the war. She was always afraid, even as an adult years after. People do terrible things to each other. Especially when fascist leaders give them permission to be their worst selves.

She told me I can write her story, but only after she is dead. Her mother’s secret life combating Nazi rule and her father’s imprisonment created in her a desperate need for peace. For stillness. To put it behind her. To get away. So they came to New Zealand. I understand that. I understand that her father was forced into the army and took lives while her mother chose to save lives. And both paid.

To watch her son, her clever handsome free son, struggle with the rage of drinking and drugs after all these sacrifices made no sense to her at all.

So, as I listen to the news of this dying man, I think of his mother’s struggle to survive. There is a dichotomy here I struggle to understand. His grand-mother’s determination. The fear. The terror of those times. Two sets of sisters. Two generations. They hid and burrowed and crawled through impossible odds. Moving carefully through Europe with pretend cousins. Hiding them. Hiding themselves in plain sight. Heads high. Pride a camouflage. Fighting to get to a country where they were free to live. To live.

Yet here is her son. Now launching himself up out of his struggle into a calm stillness. Laden with pain and an uncontrollable body. Dying with a dignity he had buried during his life. Finding light at the end. My godmother was so proud of him. She understood. As her heart broke again telling me, she said she understood and was so proud of how he organized his last days by himself with utter conviction. And bravery. The condition had advanced so fast that he asked his doctor for an end of life solution while he could still sign the consent forms. Once he gained permission from two doctors he made a plan. He was strong in his decision, she said. Swift. He did not want his elderly mother to nurse him. He did not want to be a burden. He sought dignity. When his grandparents were given impossible choices. They strove to save lives. Though diametrically opposed the bravery is similar. He offered his body death as a new beginning. He wanted to die while he could still say goodbye. He wanted his escape. He was utterly sure.

Euthanasia, or assisted dying, became legal in New Zealand in 2021. The law allows adults with a terminal illness and less than six months to live to request assistance. Two doctors must agree.
In the USA euthanasia is mostly illegal. In some states the patient may apply to be given the medication but must take it themselves.
In Germany, assisted suicide is legal since a 2020 court ruling, though active euthanasia remains illegal there are grey areas in the law allowing the courts to prosecute. In other words suicide is not illegal. But assisted suicide is sometimes legal.

This is a difficult subject right? I feel terrible recounting this but we can’t hide from our own mortality. And I am not even sure of why I feel compelled to share this with you but we don’t duck our head from the hard conversations in my family or from the hard writing in my letters to you. Yet still I am confused by it. Grappling with it. I feel the very real fight we have to protect our freedoms and protect our liberty and save our lives at all costs - we see it playing out in the USA today - in my beloved Chicago - with the threat of military action there. I see it in animals like Wai - he was covered in third degree burns and he fought through it to stay alive. He learnt to walk again and eat again and move around his small patch against all odds. But I also see it in animals who are finished and wish for me to just allow them to breathe into their last breath with dignity. To gift them a painless death.

Even that paragraph is badly formed - I am sorry - I am struggling to make sense of this and writing badly.

This man is a man. Not a pig. Or an old dog. A human. Humans deserve dignity even at their lowest. He had self will. He made a decision and got on the phone and made a plan. It was his choice and we fight for choice, right?

Once my godmother’s son knew he could take back control of his life, end his suffering on his own terms, everything moved quickly. He asked to be taken back to his farm. He had been staying with his mother at the beach. At the farm they had a lovely day under the trees. Though getting her son across the field was a struggle for his elderly parents, she recounted with a soft laugh.

He asked them to pack food and wine. His sister brought blankets and cushions. Once they were gathered he explained what he had arranged. He pointed to where his body was to be buried. Under a great tree on a hill where floods could not reach.

The day was bright. He took them through the plan. The doctors. The pill. My godmother’s voice dropped when she told me. He would take the pill the next day she said - after they were gone. She called it a pill. I did not ask more. The doctor would be with him, she said.

Then he would be gone.

The birds sang. The river trickled past as they sat on the bank. He explained this over wine and cheese. My godmother said it felt all wrong. And totally right. Like so many decisions in a life. It was a lovely day. She said. Then she paused and I heard the ragged in her breath. He died the next day. At dawn. She said. He asked for his last breath to be outside. To see the sky.

I asked her how she was coping with all this, knowing that her best friend had died in the autumn from cancer too, this was a hard year for her. She agreed that it was hard. She was able to say to me that she thought her son made a good and kind decision. She was proud that he had been a decisive and strong person at the end. Feeling strong from his ability to make this decision. He was like a young man, she said. Though he needed two sticks to walk and his hand kept losing the grip on the sticks, she said. I knew what she meant. She saw glimpses of when he was young and easy in his body. Before the drink took him. His choice freed them from watching him die unable to function. His body was in pain with headaches and cramps and spasms - he walked slowly with those two sticks. He did not want to end up being bathed or spoon-fed. He did not want them to see him like that.

We struggle so hard against the inevitable. Because it makes so many of our decisions moot. So many of our battles and rages and passions pale when faced with our inevitable end. I don’t know. I can’t write this anymore.

I am proud of my godmother being strong enough to accept his decision. And I am awfully sorry for her to have to lose her son. I don’t even know how to talk about this except I know it is an important discussion. I wonder how my own mother, who died in horrible pain from cancer, she lived with cancer for years, I wonder what she would have answered if offered an escape there at the end.

It is impossible. A conundrum. A Catch 22. There are no winners here.

It is too hard to write this letter to you. So I will finish.

It is too hard to balance mortality against life. Our lives are so short really. Fleeting. Do we strive to leave a legacy or just hold on tight for the ride.

I am going to stop here and let you take over. In the Lounge of Comments. Because in this publication your words are as important of mine. Here you are encouraged to add as much as you want.

Not sympathy - I hate sympathy it makes me want to spit. Just your words. Your thoughts. You can be you here.

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