I watched my Momma pass away in our childhood home as she was at the age of 69, just one day after Thanksgiving 2015. She had been a survivor of ovarian cancer and 8 years after that diagnosis, she had another scan and they found cancer in her tight lung. She had a surgery for that. In a quick time cancer metastasized to her liver. She endured many months of chemo. My Mom was quite the fighter through and through. I was with her for the most of this. Cancer grew in her liver despite the chemo and then had metastasized again into her brain where two tumors were found in the back part of her brain and one smaller one in the front.She endured radiation on her brain. The chemo had been stopped after a trial of the newest chemo type medication that helps the immune system fight against cancer. But by that time, her immune system was terribly damaged by the chemo and cancer so the medicine was useless. She had headaches. She slept a good bit of the time. She had less and less of an appetite and became weaker. She needed help to walk to the bathroom. Her body ached in ways I don't ever want to experience. She took pain medication but when things became so bad, even the strongest pain medicine didn't touch the pain. I was there during the doctor telling her, my father and my sister and I that there was nothing else that could be done and he recommended hospice. That meeting was the sentence before the last small chapter of her life. She passed in her sleep. I tell all of this because I experienced the horror of what cancer can do. I watched the documentary and found a big missing link in it. Where in all these stories was God? The sadness in watching the family at the end seeming so utterly lost in connection was due to the lacking of God in their lives. It was a terrible sadness. In most of the folks, there was no mention of God. THAT is a huge missing piece to 'dying with dignity'. Without our Creator being involved in our lives, my mother's situation would have been hopeless like many in this film. I feel sad for these families and so many are in the same loss. Why in the world would one try and navigate this uncertain life in all it's many evils without the never ending love, compassion, omnipotence and comforting assurance of God? Even with the support of doctors and family and friends, there is a profound emptiness, fear, and in conclusion to ending one's life in this manner. God must be the One directing this story. In Him, this missing piece of the film can be found.
Review of How to Die in Oregon
