My grandmother chose a peaceful death. Every terminally ill person deserves the option

One afternoon, my 92-year-old terminally ill grandmother, Bea, woke up lucid and calm from a nap at my parents’ home in Southern California and decided it was time to die.

Beate Sondhelm was born in Würzburg, Germany. At age 11, she and her family fled Nazi Germany and immigrated to Newark, New Jersey, where she became a U.S. citizen shortly after her 21st birthday. She married Martin Block, whose work as a high-energy particle physicist and professor took them with their two children, Steven and Gail, on worldwide travels.

She adapted every time she moved. She spoke four languages. She tended to her family. The perfect way to describe her is through a German expression, “Give with warm hands,” meaning to be generous not just after death, but in life. That was Bea.

I sped to my parents’ house that afternoon. Bea was in a guest bedroom, propped up in a hospital bed, which emphasized how small her already petite body had become. She was listening to classical music and in a better emotional state than anyone around her. My mom, Gail, was sitting by her side. A hospice nurse hovered in the background.

My grandmother’s terminal illness was inconveniently timed with legal wrangling to repeal California’s End of Life Option Act. The law allows terminally ill, mentally capable adults to request a prescription for medical aid in dying to peacefully end their suffering if it becomes unbearable.

Bea endured an arduous and lengthy process to obtain a prescription. She’d already begun the required medical visits when a district court temporarily overturned the law. This ruling halted her doctor’s ability to write a prescription. She felt her autonomy taken from her. When we found out a few months later that an appeals court had reinstated the law, she had to go through the appointments all over again.

This torturous experience is why I support new legislation, SB 380, by state Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman and Assemblymember Jim Wood, to improve access to this option by eliminating regulatory roadblocks in the law without sacrificing any of its safeguards.

By the time she had filled the prescription months prior, she wasn’t sure she’d have the will or desire to utilize the meds. She never planned her death. She didn’t pick a date in advance. But she was in excruciating pain beyond medical control. She looked at my mom earlier that day and said, “I just can’t stand it anymore.”

She was resolute. It was her time to go.

We sat in chairs around her hospital bed and tried not to let go of the moment. Bea called family who couldn’t be there and when she hung up, she said “goodbye” so definitively my heart ached.

In her final minutes, we toasted Bea with champagne in the crystal flutes from the high shelf, the ones reserved for special occasions. We were all, except Bea, losing control of our emotions. Bea was calm, quiet and exhausted. She sipped champagne. She was ready.

My mom offered my grandmother the last bowl of aid-in-dying medication with gentle, steady hands. It was a tender, heartbreaking mother-daughter moment. My mom could hardly get out the words. She said, “I love you, Mom. Thank you for being so great. I love you. We love you. Thank you.”

Bea thanked her back and said she loved her immeasurably. Gail had become Bea’s most trusted confidant, her relentless advocate, her best friend. My grandmother took the bowl from my mom and told us she loved us. She said she’d had a beautiful life. She said goodbye.

The hospice nurse came back into the room. She left because her employer’s policy barred her from being with my grandmother as she took the medication. The nurse took her vitals and said she was “transitioning,” meaning her body was now in the active dying process.

Bea died peacefully in her sleep that night.

How lucky that we got to be with her in her last moments. How painful that we watched it happen. It’s a burden I’m privileged to carry. I got to hug and kiss my grandma and make sure she knew how special she was to me. I got to help honor her wishes. It’s a memory that’s just as important to me as all the happy ones. I hold onto it just as tightly.