“Won’t eternity be a little long?” what do i do with all this time » A few days before her death, which was planned for July 2022, Ghislaine Lemay, 86, feared the coming calm. In their beautiful home in Québec City, the world began to vibrate around them: their daughters were busy making sure the medicine kit for the three injections needed to deliver euthanasia arrived on time, their grandson arranging his Room set up for a date night When the whole family found their place there, his oldest friends crowded around his bed for a last drink and to share their memories. Eventually, her great-grandchildren covered her in drawings and wished her one “Have a good trip to paradise”. “Despite her questions, my mother never flinched or panicked. remembers his daughter Geneviève Gagné, 62, a few months after his death, who welcomed him into her home for twenty years. When she found out that she was allowed to go, she even became euphoric. »

Suffering from rheumatoid arthritis since she was 46, an incurable autoimmune disease that confined her to a wheelchair, the snow-white-haired, snow-white-haired, former Bell operator’s clerk, full of zest for life and a martyr’s death long ago claimed the right to end it. He had to wait until Quebec approved euthanasia in 2015 for the law to evolve and the criteria for it to be established ” End of life ” Or from “ reasonably foreseeable natural death” be removed in 2020 so she can hope her wish will be granted – “You don’t die of polyarthritis”Until then, the doctors had opposed him.

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After two strokes, osteoporosis that made her pain worse, and days of examinations in hospitals with no hope of improvement, she thought it was summer 2022. “She took the time to make sure we were all comfortable with her decision”, says Geneviève Gagné, language reviser for the Quebec government, through tears and smiles as she flips through a photo album of her missing mother. “She made her granddaughter’s husband, who is a sailor, promise to scatter her ashes in the St. Lawrence River. July 31st, it was a Sunday, we all accompanied her in prayer for her sisters, in song for us The sea, by Charles Trénet, whom she loved so much. »

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