Brittany Maynard was a 29-year-old woman, who chose to end her life after being diagnosed with terminal ill brain cancer. In "Wild and Precious Life," a memoir by her mother, Deborah Ziegler writes about her daughter's spirit and the last year of her life. Read an excerpt below:
Preface
Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.
— Iain Thomas, "I Wrote This for You"
This is a story about ordinary people who accomplished extraordinary things. A story of a family that weathered more than one horrific storm. The last storm was the darkest, leaving in its wake scarred human beings and broken hearts. No one can look into my eyes and miss this. The melancholy is there, even when I smile. I see suffering etched in my husband’s face, as well. We are changed forever by what happened.
Often people ask me, “What did you learn from your journey?” In the early stages of grief I remember thinking, Not only am I supposed to survive, put one foot in front of the other, but I’m supposed to have learned something, too? It was an unspoken rebuke, a visceral reaction to the question. Over time, through the process of grieving, I have begun to understand that the effort put forth in answering this question is valuable, and perhaps even transformative. At least it has been for me.
Shortly after my daughter’s death, I got a tattoo on the instep of my right foot, reminding me not to let pain make me hard or bitter. It says, “Be soft.” Brittany’s birth date is inked below the words.
This book is my “soft.” In it, I’m exposing my underbelly. I’m revealing my daughter’s beautiful spirit, her fury and fearlessness, her resolute determination, our frantic struggle as we staggered toward something that flew in the face of the natural order of things. No mother should bury her child. No child should have to drag her mother, kicking and screaming, out of denial and into ugly reality. My brave Brittany faced the truth sooner than I did. It took me a while, but ultimately I was forced to look death square in the eye. “Death is coming for me, Momma. Don’t you get that?”
More than life itself, for twenty-nine years I loved my daughter. Yet I’ve learned that she doesn’t have to be physically present in order for me to love her. I can love her even after she soared away from me. My heart is open for her to fly in and out of at will.
My daughter did the best she could. I’m rock solid in that truth. She tried so hard to do what was right. This idea sounds simple, but it is not. Look around at those who disappoint you, hurt you. Are they doing the best they can? Are you? Does it make us feel safer to think our best is better than theirs?
Now look at those who are terminally ill. Are they doing their best? How dare we judge them. How dare we tell them how they ought to die. How dare we impose our beliefs on them. How dare we try to manipulate them into fighting when they have no more fight left.
Everyone who walked Brittany toward death was fallible. We were angry, sad, brave, and frightened. We were human. But each of us in the little yellow house in Portland was doing his or her best. That is one of my big lessons, and it gives me great comfort. My daughter knew that she was loved. Even in the worst of it, she knew that, just as I knew she loved me. Love sustained us, then and now.
Our lives are wild and precious, and I’ve promised to try to live mine with those words in my heart; in my laughter; in my plans for living boldly. That’s what Brittany said she wanted for me.
From "Precious and Wild Life" by Deborah Ziegler. Copyright (c) 2016 by the author and reprinted by permission of Atria.