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My brother Jon was 89 years old when he first began to talk to me about his wish to die. He was not depressed, he assured me, and by no means disappointed with his life. He had fulfilled some of the fondest dreams of his youth, and he had enjoyed reminiscing, in his older years, about the most exciting and gratifying of his early adventures. But he had been struggling recently with some health issues which, though seemingly minor, were making him less comfortable in his own skin. Restless leg syndrome and frequent muscle cramps, for example, made it hard for him to sleep for more than a few hours at a time, and sores on his legs required constant re-bandaging that was frequently uncomfortable if not painful. All of these aggravations were simply diminishing his pleasure in living.
What made this loss of comfort the more significant was that Jon lived an isolated life—by his own design, and to his own liking—but this made him particularly dependent, day to day, on the most basic pleasures of life: eating, sleeping, reading, music, and enjoying the beauty of the natural world. In Jon’s case, enjoyment of his natural environment was of supreme importance, and the prospect of having to move anywhere else to be cared for in his last years was unthinkable to him. When a young member of our family asked him once why he had never married, he gestured toward the breathtaking view outside his living room window and said “This is my relationship.”