Photography by Exum
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Death With Dignity
By Barry Yeoman, March-April 2003
When her fight against cancer became unbearable, Colleen Rice chose death as her only option. Now the U.S. government is challenging the Oregon law that helped her end the agony
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The night before Colleen Rice swallowed the medication that ended her life, she wanted to give her grandchildren one final, uncomplicated memory of their family matriarch. So with the kids out of sight, she hobbled upstairs to the bathroom, her daughter holding her steady and carrying the oxygen tank that helped her breathe through cancer-riddled lungs. She showered, put on her white housecoat, and returned to the family room of her daughter's home in Tigard, Oregon. Wanting quiet for her last night with her loved ones, Colleen removed her breathing apparatus—which she could live without for short periods of time—and with the turn of a switch, the room, usually filled with the whirring of the generator that supplied her oxygen, grew suddenly still. "I'm ready," she said.
The grandchildren were called in: 20-year-old Joshua, home from the Navy for Christmas; his 16-year-old sister, Ashley; and their 12-year-old cousin, Brendan, visiting with his father from Canada. They crowded around a small circular table—Colleen wanted them as close as possible—and brought out Tock, a French-Canadian game played with marbles, a deck of cards, and a red, white, and black wooden board with a circular center known as Heaven.
Everyone was in high spirits. As the marbles migrated around the Tock board, Joshua entertained the family with his Jim Carrey impersonations and showered his grandmother with kisses and tickles. Colleen laughed hard, even though the laughter attacked her chest with a stabbing pain. "Stop! Stop!" she protested, hating to stifle the merriment on which she thrived. Her daughter, Cathy Paul, knew what most of the kids did not: Their grandmother, whose debilitation and feeling of helplessness were worsening daily, would end her life in less than 12 hours. Cathy struggled to keep smiling as her relatives moved their marbles in and out of Heaven. At one point, Colleen pulled her daughter aside and whispered, "I'm coughing up blood."
By 11 p.m., Colleen was worn out from the lack of oxygen. "Night, Grandma," the kids said casually, but Cathy stopped them before they wandered off. "No," she said. "Give Grandma a hug and a kiss good night." Inside, she wanted to scream, "Tell her how you feel! This is the last time you'll see your grandmother's smile."
The house quiet, Cathy turned to her mother. "You don't have to do this," she said.
"Yes, I do," the older woman answered. She offered no explanation, but Cathy understood why her
mother planned to take a lethal prescription of barbiturates the next morning. The product of a strong Catholic family, Colleen had escaped a deadening first marriage and spent almost four decades on a spiritual and creative quest. The journey carried her to a metaphysics institute, where she studied spiritual issues; to the ends of the U.S. in a motor home, selling her waxwork paintings with her husband, Scott; and to the Atlantic coast of Ireland, where she researched a historical novel. Her work mostly complete at 67, she was now largely confined to the sofa and bed, her senses dulled by
morphine, the space between her lungs and chest cavity filling with fluid from her tumor. Left to its own devices, her body would have quit within a couple of months, maybe less, but Colleen didn't want to experience the misery of suffocating as her lungs became unable to deliver oxygen to her body. Instead, she wanted a quiet, prayerful death, surrounded by her family.
"I'm going to bed now," she announced. Scott had retired earlier in the evening to be alert when Colleen needed his support in the morning.
"Why don't we just stay up a bit?" Cathy asked.
"I really need the sleep," Colleen said, heading toward her room. Tomorrow would be one of the most important days of her life. She needed to be ready.
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