A Friend Stopped By | 02/16/2009 6:00 am

The Final Martini: Refreshing Ways to Die (Instead of Aging)

Author of the new book Welcome to the Departure Lounge contemplates an absurd end-of-life fantasy to deal with wrinkles

By Meg Federico

Meg Federico/Photo Courtesy of Heather P. Rose

Editor’s Note: Meg Federico, author of Welcome to the Departure Lounge: Adventures in Mothering Mother, regularly writes humor for The National Post. Her work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Shambhala Sun and Agni Magazine (Boston University Press). She has written commentary and created documentaries for CBC Radio. For several years, she wrote a successful column, "Transitions: Issues in Caregiving," for the Halifax Daily News. She lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia with her family.

"If I ever get like that, take me out behind the barn and shoot me!" says my best friend Julie, when cheerful topics like dementia or incontinence crop up. Based on the cocktail party chatter among my peers, plenty of well-adjusted, non-suicidal 50-somethings dread living too long. Unsure and afraid, we run on our treadmills, we run to Pilates, we run to the plastic surgeon — because the prospect of eating your sushi with a "spork" is less than appetizing.

But you can get your face lifted from here to Venus; you still might end up with a walker and a diaper. With that in mind, my friends and I script end-of-life scenarios that give us a sense of hope — where "hope" is the option to avoid those extra decades that modern medicine offers us. When I was a kid, bored on a Saturday afternoon, I’d amuse myself by wondering which is worse: boiling or freezing to death. Now, 40 years later. I’m thinking about it again. Because, let’s face it, human beings can expect to live longer than ever, but secretly — unless we’re "sharp as a tack" and "fit as a fiddle" — most of us hope we won’t have to.

Having seen our own parents linger, depressed and diminished, most of us don’t want to follow suit. We’d rather die, or so we say.

So with forced bravado, Julie and I cooked up a scheme we call the Final Martini. Resplendent in our formal attire (we spend a fair amount of time planning our outfits), we imagine a drive to the beach and a terminal cocktail (we haven’t figured out what exactly goes into it), imbibed as the tide goes out under a setting sun. And it turns out Julie and I aren’t the only ones with secret plans. My cousin Elizabeth, pro-freezing even as a kid, says she’ll walk into the woods on a cold snowy night with a bottle of cognac. Ever the practical one, prior to her moonlight hike Elizabeth plans to mail a letter to the cops detailing her location.

"I wouldn’t want some poor stranger walking a dog to find me." My, doesn’t she think of everything?

Jean, my control freak, marathon-running doctor friend, shares this cheerful thought: "I’m likely to get run over by a truck on the highway when I’m out jogging." "What if you don’t?" I ask. "A self-administered overdose," she counters, matter-of-factly.

Sounds so simple, yet glitches abound. Where will she hide her stash of pills? "Oh, in the back of my bathroom drawer," she says airily. Her children are all male. In my household, the girls ransack my drawers on a regular basis. They have a better idea of the contents than I do. They’d have no difficulty putting two and two together and relieving poor old Mom of her exit strategy.

Some of my pals are less hard-core. For Carolyn, the concrete details are taboo. "I’m an optimist," she says vaguely. "I hope to go to sleep and not wake up." A nice thought, but you may as well hope for eternal youth.

Statistically speaking, after age 75 you may very well have arthritis, macular degeneration, dementia, incontinence and a lot more face time with your doctor. If you wind up in the care system, you’ll never be alone long enough to mix up the gin and strychnine. To carry out your exit plan, you need strength, gumption — and privacy.

75 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

OK I get it now,Lorna.Tell me what did you think Albert was trying to say?

By Michael Salling on 03/02/2009 9:18 pm

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Men are sometimes inclined to make rather pious judgements about moral decisions they are rarely called upon to make. It rarely falls to the part of men to caretake elderly or disabled parents - or to have abortions, for that matter, but they seem to like to adopt an absolute position about it and pontificate to others.

By Lorna Fabuloso on 03/02/2009 10:19 pm

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But didn’t he come down in favor of a cheap, fast suicide pill at the end? And then try to say it’s all the will of God? The tiger in the mangroves is so much more romantic, though.

By Michael Salling on 03/02/2009 11:29 pm

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..and ecologically sound..:)

By Lorna Fabuloso on 03/03/2009 11:54 am

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I became estranged from my sister over what was to happen to our mother, who had Alzheimer’s, after our father’s death. Our parents had been having caregivers come to their home for years, and I saw no reason that couldn’t continue, but my sister was insistent on a substandard nursing home where she, and they lived. I brought my mother home with me, to another state, and she lived with me, and caregivers in the day, for 4 months, until she died. I do not think she knew me by then, but she was content and well cared for and only seemed unhappy when she understood, briefly, from time to time, that Dad was gone. My sister and I have since reconciled. I can tell you that 4 months was absolutely exhausting physically and emotionally. I am glad I did what I did, and I thank God it lasted only 4 months. I don’t know how I’d have survived 4 years. I would never judge anyone else on this issue because I know how hard it is.

For myself, my ideal would be to assist myself right out of this life, when I know I have had my last, best day. That’s impossible to define. For many people, the best they can do is have a living will. Mine is brutally strightforward, basicaly, when I’m too sick to sit up and order from the menu, they can pull the plug! I don’t know the answer for myself, much less anyone else. I hope that I’ll die while I’m still mentally fit, still employed, still with lots of life insurance. I’ve made peace with everyone I can. I’ve looked up many people from my past and said hello to them and thanked many of them for their help to me. I try not to leave dirty dishes in the sink or the house too much of a mess, because you never know when you might not wake up. However, with my luck, I’ll probably live past being employed, past this house, etc. How do you know when to go? If you wait too long, you lose your options, and this decision is so big you can’t put it onto anyone else. When, indeed, is the last, best day?

By elaine s on 02/25/2009 11:51 am

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Actually, as sad as this topic is, I have thought about many of the things that brought up in this thread. My thoughts are mostly private about my end. I have a disease that sometimes makes me think about the final martini, but then I find another person who has this disease that encourages me to go on. Or, I find someone who wants to find their creative spirit and I press on to help them. Lately, I’ve focused on my own art and the amazing things that can happen when I let go of the outcome.

As for the final martini….I’ll hold off bartender, but when I need one…well, that’s another issue.

By Josie Sullivan on 02/25/2009 5:23 pm

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Boomer, baby. Here we come, ready or not - 78M of us. Our over indulgent drug taking culture will likely spring back to life as we hit our 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, or whenever we think enough is enough. (Hopefully we will still be able to think when we reach our end). I can’t wait to be 75, at which point I will start smoking and drinking all over again - if only they still made quaaludes. It’s all about having a good death - and in the end we must all hope for that.

By Robin P on 02/25/2009 7:27 pm

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Interesting twist on a road we all must go down. But, I am stuck with two role models who have taught me that life is precious even to the end. My mother had lung cancer and used to write in her journal during her chemo treatments, "I’m going to beat this thing." My sister and I would wait for her in the waiting room with our kids romping around and my husband would pop in during his lunch break. Mom loved when all of us were together and it didn’t matter if it was in the waiting room of a hospital. She loved her little studio apartment with a tiny terrace where she would smoke her cigarette and have her morning coffee. So, we decided to bring in a hospital bed and let her spend her last months in her own home. The day she died, she was surrounded my her daughters, nieces, son-in-law and devoted ex-husband (divorced or thirty years and they lived on the same floor in their apartment building, go figure!) We witnessed her taking her last breath and I feel blessed to have been there to help her leave this life. I know Mom wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Blessings,

Bonnie Katz

Bonniekatz.com

By Bonnie Katz on 02/28/2009 9:09 am

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I was there when my mom drew her last breath. Just mom and me. Not quite, my daughter was on the phone lamenting about a problem with someone in the drama dept. at college where she attended. I didn’t let her know her grandmother was in the process of leaving us. God works in mysterious ways. I was mothering my daughter as my mother left us. Mom knew I was doing what she had done for 52 years with me. I believe she had a peaceful exit just like her husband did a little over 4 years before hers. No need for details of their ill-health. I just hope I go as peacefully, with no need for that "final cocktail".

By Jessie Bowdoin on 02/28/2009 5:13 pm

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Really, the way GOD works, is what we call everyday life. The mystery for us, is why things happen to whom they happen.In the drowning of those football players, it is reported that the survivor thought of his mother. Was that as important as his thinking he should wear his life preserver? Why did the others not wear theirs?Their decision resulted in leaving earth. Was there anything extraordinary about drowning? Not in the middle of the ocean without a life preserver.

By albert miller on 03/04/2009 4:08 pm

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Speaking as someone who never thought she would live beyond 30 (now 58) I can honestly say that I’ve considered my options. Luckily, I have been healthy so far, but we have to remember that death is the one single thing we do completely alone. The death of my older sister in April of 2008 (who definitely had a plan, although I’m not sure she had time to execute it) illustrates this perfectly.

I guess it’s comforting to know that other women think similarly to me and my two sisters. However, we never know how we will deal with such things until we are face-to-face with eternity. I would like to think I will be that courageous, because the alternative (being cared-for) is just unacceptable. I guess this is a sign of our times (and our gender).

Evelyn Carter on 3-1-09

By Evelyn Carter on 03/02/2009 11:50 am

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I think the alone part for me is the worst. It doesn’t have to be that way. http://www.newser.com/story/51922/suicide-group-may-have-helped-130-kill-selves.html

By Michael Salling on 03/02/2009 11:38 pm

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My main point is that not being self-creating, we can never be self-determining. Science has recently shown that when we make a choice, we actually make it before we consciously make it. It’s like something whispering to us "this one." It is no male vs female issue. It’s all about my feeling that life is totally programmed for every one of us. The reason being all the emotions we feel in our lives. To me, feelings are the reason for our lives, and the way we pay our creator for misdeeds we must have made at some time and place, somewhere in the universe. Children as young as 5 yrs., who have come back from near death experiences,tell about how happy they were to get rid of their bodies. This is so incredible for us to believe, because they had very good lives, and fast "deaths". One more interesting thing is that on returning to life, people completely forget what they knew , when "dead". When they were "dead", they say they knew the reason for everything. Interesting? We really can’t know what GOD is, but for me it’s GOVERNOR OF DESTINIES.

By albert miller on 03/03/2009 1:53 am