My Friend Chooses How and When to Die
March 10, 2025 at 11:46PMIn 2023, Jeanette Cooperman learned that her friend Ann had decided to complete her own life in the fall of 2024. Ann Mandelstamm was in her mid-80s, but according to Cooperman, had appeared as vibrant as ever. Mandelstamm revealed that some nagging physical issues, along with the fact that she felt her “cognitive bandwidth shrinking,” had prompted her to implement the plan she’d made over a decade ago. Ann wanted to be in full control, while the decision to die remained hers to make. As Cooperman grapples with Ann’s decision, she examines what it means to have a good life and a good death.
We plan our weddings and babies and careers and investments and retirement. But when it comes to our death, the capstone of our life, we shrug and leave it to fate. Which might be where it belongs, I argue silently. I did not bring myself into being. Maybe it is that simple: if we did not ask to be here, we cannot ask to leave. On the other hand, life is a long lesson in assertiveness. We are taught to act in the world, to initiate, innovate, and above all, to alleviate suffering. Surely our own would fall within that purview?
Ambivalence whiplashes me. Still, writing about my friend’s decision feels like an honor.
Or does it make me an accomplice?
More picks by Jeanette Cooperman
Naked Beneath Our Clothes
“Why I dragged my husband to a nudist resort.”
There Is No Place like Home, Whatever That Is
“According to our writer, home is both longing and belonging.”
Variations on the Theme of Silence
“Without stretches of silence, you cannot hear yourself or anyone else.”
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/03/10/my-friend-chooses-how-and-when-to-die/
via IFTTT
Watch