The heartbreaking struggle to help a loved one through MAID

Hidden complexities await family members, writes Cynthia Clark.

I recently read an article about a Calgary father seeking a court intervention to prevent his adult daughter from having a medically assisted death (MAID).

That same day, I attended a presentation titled Hidden Complexities by Dr. Tracy Powell, summarizing her

PHD research into family members' experiences of MAID.

I was not part of Powell's study, but I felt tremendously validated as she shared her findings and recommendations. She seemed to intimately understand the subtle ways that MAID had been hard for me, after both my husband and father died with medical assistance.

I can relate to the father who does not want his daughter to die. I was not ready for my husband to die, either. No one ever wants their loved one to die. Not by accident, not by disease, not by overdose and not by choice.

Hearing a family member say “I want help to die” is breathtakingly hard, even if you support MAID, like I do, because it means they have accepted something that you have not — their own mortality.

Powell's research found that family members don't usually have enough time to fully comprehend their loved one's suffering before being asked to jump in and help them fulfil their wishes.

Things such as MAID paperwork, phone calls, co-ordinating assessments and logistics frequently fall on the caregivers' shoulders. Some family members refuse to participate in the MAID process, or, like the father in Calgary, fight against their loved one's choice. Most loved ones, regardless of their own perspectives, end up helping navigate the rigorous application and approval process for MAID for our loved one.

We, as family members, seem to hide our own fears, needs and worries to prioritize our loved one's preference. We advocate for them throughout the MAID process while simultaneously not wanting them to die, which is a mind-bending exercise full of emotional turmoil. We know that our assistance is vital to them achieving the very outcome we dread — a life without them in it.

I have no regrets about helping my husband access MAID, but it was also the hardest thing I have ever done. I understand the conflict this Calgary father faces, trying to love his daughter for as long as he can, in the best way he knows how.

I thank Powell for her astute observations of the hidden complexities a family member faces when a loved one chooses MAID. For the first time in a long time, I felt like someone in the medical establishment truly saw and acknowledged the toll that my husband's MAID death took on me.

We need to spend more time caring for the caregivers, as they care for their loved ones and their medical choices.

Cynthia Clark is the co-author of The Many Faces of MAID. She supported both her husband and her father through their medically assisted deaths. She currently serves as a board member of MAID Family Support Society and volunteers with Dying with Dignity Calgary, working to ensure families and loved ones have education and peer support before, during and after a medically assisted death.