Grandpa Dave deserved to leave on his own terms
Dave Schneider has been gone now for almost 30 years. There are no statues or memorials to the man, but his legacy is nevertheless poignant and powerful. Working-class men and women are seldom remembered beyond the loving network of their own families — their fame is finite, defined by the mark they made on their children and grandchildren. That was the case for Dave, my grandpa.
Mind you, he was a genuine war hero. Four years in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, lots of medals and, after being a senior sergeant, offered a commission in the field. “Me a bloody officer? You must be joking!”
He did what he had to do, did it well, but as soon as the war was over the only thing he wanted was to come back to his beloved Bertha, sleep in his own bed and once again be in that tiny East London apartment that was home for most of his life.
He was an orphan, never owned his own home or a car, worked hard and for little money, drank and smoked too much, had tattoos and was proud of his status. He was extraordinary as only the ordinary can be. It’s something the rich and the powerful rarely understand.
Dave had seen the tearing reality of death countless times and it didn’t frighten him. He didn’t discuss the war very often — those who have seen battle so often are usually the last to want to relive it — but I knew what he had been through. Most of the men in his original unit never came home.
What did scare him was losing power and control over his own dignity and humanity, of becoming an object or a victim. He never had much, but what he did have was his autonomy, his right to be his own person, the sacred human right to not have to bend the knee. To anybody.
He was in his late 70s when cancer was first diagnosed and back then it was usu- ally a death sentence. But Dave was tough and if cancer wanted a fight it would get one. The doctors were surprised and delighted that he kept going. But one of the gruesome weapons in cancer’s dark armoury is its relentlessness. Of course it returned. And now Dave was going blind, too.
That was the first time he asked to die. He was 80 by then, a mere shell and shadow of the man he had been. He couldn’t see, could hardly move, needed help to do almost everything and was in constant pain.
I will never forget what he said to me. “I can deal with the pain, it’s coming at me like an enemy and I can cope. It’s knowing that I am no longer me, no longer the me I always had been, the me I wanted to live as and die as. Mike, tell them to let me go.”
I didn’t let him see me cry. I knew what the doctor would say, but also knew I had to speak to him. He was kind, understanding, hinted that he wished things were different and then held my arm in a gesture of what was, I suppose, collective impotence.
Dave asked me again two days later, and twice again during the next three weeks. I didn’t even ask the doctors. There was no point. I sat with my mum and dad and saw Dave — tough, rough, good, kind, brave, independent Dave evaporate into a cloud of despair.
The pain was so great that the medication tossed him into what were obviously deeply disturbing and nightmarepacked sleeps. It went on for so long, so hellishly long. Then he died. He was no more, but in fact had been gone for months. Life, not death, had been assisted and artificial.
This is not the place for a detailed discussion of euthanasia and I know, as do most of us, all of the arguments. I also know that the subject has often become the puppet and plaything of conservative groups who seem only to care about others just before birth and just before death.
It’s nuanced and complex but, in the name of simple decency and compassion, we have to allow people to leave on their own terms. Dave knew that. God forgive me, Grandpa Dave knew that.