My Father Planned His Death. I Didn’t Stop Him.

Death, Sex & Money

Slate Podcasts

Business, Health & Fitness, Society & Culture, Careers, Relationships, Sexuality

4.6 • 7.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 October 2024

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

One day on his morning Uber route, Jason Armstrong got an email from his father. The message: at 85, he'd decided to end his life by stopping eating and drinking. Jason's first reaction? This was the "ultimate act of narcissism." But over the next few months, as Jason witnessed his dad's careful preparations, his perspective shifted. In this episode, Jason talks to Anna about processing his father's choice - from panic attacks on morning walks to a poignant final night sharing tiny sips of favorite drinks, and opens up about grappling with love, tenderness, and what it means to honor a parent's wishes, even when they're hard to accept. Podcast production by Zoe Azulay Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus! Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus. And if you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is [email protected]. Public.com Ad Disclosure: A Bond Account is a self-directed brokerage account with Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Deposits into this account are used to purchase 10 investment-grade and high-yield bonds. As of 9/26/24, the average, annualized yield to worst (YTW) across the Bond Account is greater than 6%. A bond’s yield is a function of its market price, which can fluctuate; therefore, a bond’s YTW is not “locked in” until the bond is purchased, and your yield at time of purchase may be different from the yield shown here. The “locked in” YTW is not guaranteed; you may receive less than the YTW of the bonds in the Bond Account if you sell any of the bonds before maturity or if the issuer defaults on the bond. Public Investing charges a markup on each bond trade. See our Fee Schedule. Bond Accounts are not recommendations of individual bonds or default allocations. The bonds in the Bond Account have not been selected based on your needs or risk profile. See https://public.com/disclosures/bond-account to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Last May I got a text from a good friend. He wrote, I have a possible DSM lead for you.
0:06.0	The elderly father of one of my good friends has elected to end his life this summer.
0:11.0	He's going to stop eating. He is a retired doctor. My friend is struggling with it.
0:18.4	That led me to connect with Jason, my friend's good friend. His father had some chronic heart problems, but death was not otherwise
0:27.8	imminent, or at least as not imminent as you can be as an 85-year-old man in America.
0:35.0	Jason and I first talked on the phone in May,
0:38.0	and we kept in touch over the next several months
0:42.0	as Jason's father prepared to die and Jason's feelings
0:46.0	about his father's decision evolved. In our episode today you'll hear Jason tell me about the end of his dad's life.
0:55.4	He died one month before we recorded this and what it was like to be with him at the end. It is an intense listen and also one that gets right at the
1:06.9	heart of things we talk a lot about on this show. Love, family, facing straight on what is actually happening and also as it's embedded
1:17.6	right in our name that the end is coming for each of us.
1:22.4	Jason walks me through how it happens. is coming for each of us.
1:26.0	Jason walks me through how it happened for his father. And you'll hear, Jason is smart and funny.
1:30.0	He's a trained lawyer who focuses on procedure and minutia, but he's warm too.
1:36.4	He's the kind of person you could give a tricky personal problem too, and they would break it
1:40.9	down logically without judgment.
1:43.0	He made me think about a lot of this in new ways.
1:47.0	And a few notes on this, we are talking about end of life decision making
1:51.0	and end of life care in this episode and Jason and his father both
1:55.8	had mental health support as they went through this. If anything from this
2:00.2	episode feels too much and like you need someone to talk to start with
	...

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