The End in
Two Acts
She told him that, if he wanted to, he could come to Oregon, that she and her family would take care of him. Exactly how the topic of Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act came up, or who first broached the subject, she doesn’t remember. But when Allison got off the phone with her father, she immediately called Compassion & Choices of Oregon and spoke to George Eighmey, an attorney and former state representative who is the nonprofit group’s executive director.
Since 1997, the organization had been providing support and information to Oregonians considering using the aid-in-dying law. George and his assistant — the group is a two-person, bare-bones operation — spent their days on the phone counseling terminally ill patients and their families, talking with health care providers and making connections between the two. Allison reported the conversation to her father. A self-reliant, independent thinker his whole life, David Bradley wanted an equally independent, self-reliant exit. He would come to Oregon, stay with Allison and begin to plan a peaceful death.
It was a month and a half after settling in Portland that David woke up angry one morning. Installed in a spare bedroom upstairs that was filled with his own books and memorabilia, he had been spending his days quietly, coming to terms with what he had and hadn’t accomplished in his life, contacting old friends, strengthening his connection to his grandchildren. His health was failing. He couldn’t swallow and was taking nourishment from a tube, but his attitude was generally serene.