A terminally ill Missouri mom is heading to Switzerland to end her own life before her disease makes the trip impossible.
Gayle Hendrix, a 79-year-old mother of two from Cape Girardeau, has struggled with a brutal combination of lupus and interstitial lung disease for the past four years. And although her friends say she doesn’t seem like she’s nearing the end, she says she knows otherwise.
“My friends will say, ‘But you don’t look or sound or act like somebody who is near death.’ But I am dying, and that’s what I want to control,” the former human-resources worker recently told local news station 12 KFVS.
“I don’t want to get to the point of, ‘This is existing, not living,’ ” she said, adding that she’s tied to an oxygen machine and can only walk short distances. “I’ve had a great life, and I want to have some dignity when I’m going to the next phase.”
Hendrix, a retiree originally from North Carolina, was always active and busy before her cruel diagnoses, daughter Charlene Foeste told the station.
“She always either had three jobs or she was going somewhere, like to concerts or festivals,” Foeste said. “She was always busy, always.”
Hendrix said she loved to hike, travel, walk and bike — and she always took Foeste to concerts when she was young, fostering a love of music in the next generation.
“I would love to say I was a poet, a painter and a musician … I have nothing in that arena,” Hendrix said with a laugh. “So I think that’s why I took up walking, because I can walk. I was an avid walker, anywhere from 3 to 5 miles a day … every day up until about 3 years ago.”
That’s how she figured out she was sick, the mom told the station.
“My shortness of breath kept getting worse and worse,” Hendrix said. “Even on flat surfaces, I was breathing heavy.”
Even before her own sickness, Hendrix had been a decades-long advocate for assisted suicide, getting involved with groups such as Compassion and Choices, a Colorado nonprofit that works to open access to aid-in-dying.
That’s how she knew that she wanted her own off-ramp, whenever the time was right.
“It just feels like it’s the right thing to do,” Hendrix said. “People are not comfortable talking about death.”
Her daughter doesn’t agree with her mother’s decision. But she is supporting her anyway.
“My mom and I are opposites — we really are on everything — we always have been,” Foeste said.
“My mom has always walked to her own beat. You know, you don’t have to agree with people, you don’t, but you do have to love and support people.”
In just a few days, the mother-daughter duo will board a plane for Switzerland, where Hendrix will end her life Sept. 26.
“She’s a very realistic person, she’s always hit issues and problems head-on,” Foeste said. “It is going to be hard, but I know that, and I know sort of what to expect and what the end result is going to be for sure.”
Hendrix, for her part, wants to make sure the deed is done before she’s too sick to travel.
“When I started seeing more and more decline, like monthly, I can tell this is not as good as it was last month,” she said. “I knew then, if I wanted to do it when I’m still able to walk in and still make the trip, then I need to do it soon.”
Although several US states have assisted suicide laws on the books, they all have residency requirements, according to the station.
The two that don’t — Oregon and Vermont — mandate that the person can’t have more than six months to live.
“I don’t want to wait that long,” Hendrix said. “I don’t want to get that sick.”
Hendrix already knows the drill — doctors will put an IV in her arm, and the first drug will put her to sleep while the second stops her bodily functions.
“In 5 minutes, it’s done,” she said.
Her body will be cremated, and her remains will be sent back to Missouri.
Despite the finality of her act, she says she’s not nervous.
“I was just sitting here while I was describing this thinking, ‘I sound like a clinician, I don’t sound like someone talking about my own death,’ ” she said. “But it’s because I’m so, I’m comfortable with my decision.”
That doesn’t dampen the pain that her family will feel.
“It’s a huge loss, a huge loss for us,” Foeste said. “It’s not going to be the same. It’s just not.
“I can’t say I agree with her decision, I don’t,” she added. “But, it’s not my choice. I do love her and support her, and there’s no way on the planet my mom is going to do this alone, no way.
“It’s been hard, but I’ve been blessed to have her as my mom,” Foeste said.
