Dear Friends,
Over the Thanksgiving week I watched, with delight, the new Netflix series, A Man on the Inside. Ted Danson stars as Charles, the widower of a much-loved bride with Alzheimer’s. Answering the ad of a private detective agency, he takes a turn as an undercover spy in a retirement community dealing with theft. The director of the retirement home may not know his true purpose for being there, but she immediately recognizes something in him that he hadn’t yet acknowledged in himself: “For most of the seniors, the threat to their well-being isn't an accident or health,” she tells Charles. “It's loneliness.”
Elsewhere in the series, Charles meets a woman who reminds him much of his wife. It won’t be long until she moves into the memory care unit, another resident tells him. Charles wonders where her friends have gone, why she is always sitting alone, left abandoned by other residents. The discomfort that so many others feel around her decline is palpable and the audience is left to cheer on Charles as he chooses to sit with her, kindly repeating himself without judgement.
When I thought of writing about this show and the connections that, to me, are so obvious to assisted suicide, I thought of writing about the spike in suicides this time of year. However, when I went to research it, I learned that my understanding was wrong and that suicide rates do not actually increase around the holidays. Last year, the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania dug into the myth and the reality surrounding holiday suicides. They found that while there is not a spike around the holiday times, journalists and the public-at-large often assume there is one. This is important, because suicide prevention campaigns recognize that headlines normalizing suicide can cause harm. From the Public Policy Center:
“It’s important to dispel the holiday-suicide myth because allowing people to think that suicide is more likely during the holiday season can have contagious effects on people who are experiencing a crisis and contemplating suicide.”
In every other context, we understand and accept that dying by suicide impacts not just the individual but their family, their friends, and the community. The discriminatory policy of assisted suicide further drives a wedge between those who are struggling and people who are already pulling away in their discomfort around challenging diagnoses. When the government normalizes suicide for hard diagnoses, a dangerous rhetoric of “Well, I wouldn’t want to live like that” seeps into our subconscious and changes how we feel about ourselves and the people around us.
Every day I hear stories of people who feel abandoned by society, told that they would be “better off dead,” and left dehumanized by proponents who push physician-assisted suicide as a solution to the ills that life throws us. I think of the stories, too many stories, of partners left abandoned after a cancer diagnosis, or lonely relatives left unvisited because of age-related challenges with memory or the ability to speak.
And I think of you, dear advocate, who answer the call to reach out and say “No! No, we do not abandon our most vulnerable friends, we embrace them.” The policy of physician-assisted suicide is the embodiment of abandonment. We reject the idea that some lives have less value and instead work towards a community where all are treated with dignity and respect, no matter their health or disability status.
I am grateful for your advocacy every day; I am grateful when you answer the call to submit a letter to the editor or to call your legislator. Those of you who step up and ask for a meeting with your state representative - you are my heroes! But this season I have one more favor to ask. Look around your community and see who you know that may not have a table to join. Consider inviting an older relative in a nursing home, or a shut-in neighbor, or a colleague that doesn’t have others to celebrate with and set an additional seat this holiday season. The work we do is about the worth and dignity that we all have; a dignity not tied to ability or health but instead inherent in our humanity.
In A Man on the Inside, Charles reflects on doing the best he could for his late wife and loving her with everything he had. He asked for help when the challenges were more than he could face on his own, and he felt guilt for that decision. But the truth is that we will all need help and we will all, if we’re lucky, be in a position to provide that help for someone else. Many of us have the privilege of loving someone through, not in spite of, their diagnosis. And, even on the days when it is hard, dignity remains.
Wishing you and yours the very best this holiday season,
