Here's the meat and potatoes of the link I posted above
I was present when David Lewis took his life in 1990 to avoid the final stages of AIDS. So many people wrote to the newspapers to pontificate on the event. They had absolutely no clue what it was like. After several weeks of lobbying, the newspapers finally let me tell what actually happened. What follows is what I wrote based on an essay I wrote the night he died:
In recent weeks pundits have pontificated on TV and in the press over David Lewis's decision to commit suicide rather than face a lingering death. None of these men ever even met David. I was present the night David died. Here is what really happened Friday night 1990-08-24.
In some eyes, David is a coward and a sinner and I am a murderer for not interfering. If you were present, I think you would see it differently.
Before, when I heard people talk of death as a natural and even beautiful part of life, I thought them ghoulish. I still hate death, but now I can at least understand that point of view.
I know that the way David chose is the way I wish to die as well, eventually.
David was terminally ill with AIDS. He had a stroke so one side of his body was paralyzed, he was partially deaf and partially blind. He was incontinent. He could not eat any food without immediately throwing it up. He had a rapidly growing painful brain tumor, He had toxoplasmosis — a festering of the brain. He complained of the nausea and the pain of the brain tumor. He was expected to die within days or weeks.
David did not want to die. He enjoyed his life immensely, even to the very last second. Unfortunately, living was not one of the options. Two of the choices were:
Go into palliative care, go on higher doses of morphine, die naturally with tube up his nose in a hospital, become demented gaga to use his term, probably alone. He would be too weak to take charge of ending of his life no matter how intense the suffering.
Face the ultimate terror — death, surrounded with the comfort of his friends, in his home, with flowers, music and gentle readings. He could say his last good-byes properly with full emotion. He would have to sacrifice a few days or weeks of suffering. He would have to face the moment of truth when he switched the IV that would eventually kill him.
David repeatedly insisted, "I am not committing suicide. Suicide is when people are emotionally despondent and don't want to live. I am opposed to suicide. What those people need is counseling. I am a professional counselor. I have helped hundreds of suicidal people come to see that these emotional wounds eventually heal. I don't want to die. I have to die. All I am doing is adjusting the time of my death a little so that I can die with dignity. This is completely different. We should have a different word for it."
The press have been phoning every few hours over the last week to ask Is he dead yet? The seven men and three women David chose to be with him do not want to be named. They wish to avoid media hassles and the potential of legal action. David wanted his death to have a greater meaning. He hopes his death will make it possible for other terminally ill people to die gently.
David held a barbecue last Sunday. Friends, sexual buddies and relatives came to say goodbye. We laughed and joked and David told ribald stories of the distant and recent past and how one of his medications made him very horny.
The Friday night was much more subdued. David already had the IV in his arm that he put there himself. It was dripping harmless saline solution.
David kept asking, "What's going to happen to me after I die? I don't know, I just don't know. I'm so scared. Probably nothing. Probably nothing at all — just poof."
I told him about all the myths I knew, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Tibetan etc. One person suggested that perhaps he would meet his lover who died of AIDS last year. I wanted so badly for those myths to be true.
We joked that perhaps, like an Egyptian, he should take a small gold cat with him, or some change. Because of the Social Credit policy of making all experimental drugs free except those for AIDS patients, David detested Premier Vander Zalm right to the end. BC is the only province to attempt to reduce its NDP-voting gay population by charging $425 per month for drugs. If possible, David will haunt the premier's theme park, Fantasy Gardens.
David talked of his experience, many years ago, when he was dead for a short time on the operating table and how he did not want to come back to life then.
I told David, "Look, you have set up this theatrical event here. You don't have to go through with it just because we all came. I think you are doing this too soon. I will not interfere. I want this to be 100% your decision. Don't let anybody rush you. If you want to call this all off, or stall, it is fine with us. "
Other people said similar things, though with more heart. I nearly always sound like a robot.
One guy said, You know this already David. I don't want you to go. Please stay. Then he just started to cry and cry. We all cried.
David has a huge bed. We sat around it and in it. Someone wiped his forehead. Another massaged his foot. Another held his hand. He rested his head on one of the women's breasts. David told us how frightened he was. Someone would say, You don't have to do this. Then he would firmly snap "But I have to! The alternative is too terrible."
We sat in silence. We would cry. David would tell a little joke and we would all giggle. Finally David said, I want you to leave the room. We each hugged him for the last time. David sobbed and clung to us. "I love you so much. I miss you all so much. I hate to leave all this love, but I have to" were his last words.
A few stayed behind. They read from Steven Levine's Who Dies page 243. Louis Armstrong sang on a tape It's a Wonderful World. David changed the bag from saline to a sleeping potion. A while later he went peacefully to sleep. A while later he stopped breathing.
David was always the clown. I never saw him sentimental in the twenty years I knew him till that night. David died supremely happy, at first frightened, then peaceful.
David felt unconditionally loved. He received it before, but never felt it inside. When he threw up, no one batted an eyelid. He was still just as lovable. We adored him the way parents adore a new baby. David felt his own love for his friends more deeply then ever before at any time in his life. He made a proper and fitting farewell.
Outside during all this, a beautiful family of strangers stood a candlelight vigil. They held a sign Your life is precious to us, we care, David. In his last hours David talked of his gratitude at the kindness of complete strangers who had sent good wishes or various unusual offers of comfort.
Some of us cleaned him up, put on fresh sheets and clothes. We all came downstairs. Ms. Brutus (his enormous basset hound) jumped up on the bed. David had asked that we allow Ms. Brutus to lick his face. She made snoring noises. I could not help but think David — this is another of your practical jokes. You are not really dead. I can hear you snoring. It was like being five years old waiting as your sibling played dead — holding the breath. I held his arm. It felt cold, but it felt cold ever since the stroke. I felt his forehead. It was very cool. It took a long time for it to sink in that David really was dead. This body was not David. It looked like a respectable middle aged man — not the outrageous David I knew.
Then I began to feel joy. It was as if David was saying to me I've escaped. I'm free of the suffering. I feel sorry you guys trapped in your bodies. The real David, if he was anywhere at all, was somewhere else. The corpse seemed like a giant wax puppet, of no further importance.
David had asked that we toast him with Champagne. Nobody felt festive. Eventually we followed orders and toasted David. I took a glass down to him and put a few drops in his mouth. The gesture was irreverent, so I knew David would approve.
Love Roedy