Lessons of caring for my dying mother

One of the first rules of journalism, drummed into me ad nauseam by a wizened old newspaperman who masqueraded as a university lecturer, was that no reporter should ever decline an assignment.

It is a maxim I have lived by, particularly when I worked in television, because I knew that if I knocked back a story my boss had a drawerful of letters from younger, more pert, more attractive wannabes who wouldn’t. Indeed, this indefatigability quickly became my trademark, and troubled times like death knocks (ringing the bell of a family hours after a murder or accident had claimed one or more of their number) would cue the newsroom cri de guerre “send Edwards”.

So, when I was assigned by one news editor to interview Sir Terry Pratchett, I stowed my long-held, deeply-avowed revulsion of science fiction and got my coat.

The hardest people to interview are footballers because they’re generally subliterate, and if they’re not getting paid, they’re not interested. Politicians will sell their grandweans into slavery to get on camera, but won’t answer your questions. An established author attending a big city comic convention would be a skoosh. And so it proved.

Sir Terry was a lovely guy. Even though I had never read one of his books and never would, we chatted for ages, long after the camera was stowed back in the car for its next assignment. And our chat gave me much food for thought.

Sir Terry was diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, which in itself was not the biggest part of the story. He was a proponent of assisted suicide which, to my mind, was. He very eloquently talked me through his views that, with the vividness he then possessed but was not promised for much longer, he would choose to end his life peacefully and with dignity, surrounded by those he loved and who loved him. Perfectly laudable, perfectly understandable.

In the years before I met him I lived in Switzerland, where I worked in an international world service radio newsroom. It was an experience which broadened my horizons. I learned languages, travelled the world and worked on massive stories.

The thing about Switzerland is that it melds kitsch, picture-postcard tourist quaintness with cutting-edge technology and thought. Just up the road from my flat in Bern stood the Dignitas clinic, where you can go and end your life.

It is, of course, not as simple as just rocking up and popping a pill. There are protocols and procedures, and all these have to be met and agreed by a team of Swiss doctors before the final journey is taken. Under British law, where such a clinic is forbidden, if you were to help me make that final journey by booking my flight, for example, then you’d face being charged as an accessory to my death. Despite the ongoing debate, it is still illegal to help someone die here. Whose idea was it? Who benefits? Do you still feel the way you felt when you decided?

My mother was a nurse all her days, and cared for countless patients down many decades. She frequently said that she didn’t want to be a burden to anyone the way her patients often were, and wanted to take a “blue pill” to end her life if she became incapacitated. I agreed with her then, and I agree with her now – I, too, would want to take a blue pill or go to Switzerland, particularly if there is an agonising medical condition ongoing.

But, here’s the rub. I retired from my busy, lucrative, high-profile TV career to care for my mother at home, alone, through the last stages of her dementia journey. Thankfully, until her dying day, she could walk, but I did everything else for her. I toileted her, changed her, showered her, dressed her, fed her, sang to her. And, do you know what? I loved those days, even though she was failing by the second before my eyes.

When she died in my arms, long after what both of us would have regarded as the blue-pill stage, I prayed that she heard me telling her how much I loved her. And, far from helping her end her life, I would have done anything to prolong it, even by a few weeks, a few days, a few hours, despite the condition she was in at the end.

That state was what she was talking about when she mentioned the blue pill all those years ago. Had she known then how she would pass, of course she would have wanted to die earlier, quietly, with dignity.

Assisted dying is before the Scottish Parliament. Forget independence, the economy, Trident. This subject is the most important we will debate in modern times.

This subject is the most important we will debate in modern times