Dear Brittany: Why We Don’t Have To Be So Afraid of Dying & Suffering that We Choose Suicide

It’s all over the news.  A young cancer patient named Brittany Maynard — only twenty-nine years old — has decided to take her own life on November 1st, in order to avoid all of the end-of-life drama, hospice, and pain which might be associated with the agony of cancer.  The story of death on-one’s-own-terms has resonated with America, as she advocate during her last days that everyone have access to assisted suicide.  People magazine’s headline calls her choice “Death with Dignity.”

But an author named Kara Tippetts, who is also facing death from cancer, took the time to explain why Brittany doesn’t have to be so afraid of death that she chooses to end her life in this way. She is the mother of four and the author of “The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life’s Hard.”  Ann Voscamp wrote that “Kara humbly speaks important words into this current news story and national conversation about assisted suicide with a tender weight & compassionate gravity that only someone, a mother, a wife, a daughter, bravely facing terminal cancer can — we earnestly love and pray for both women as they each share own their stories.”

On Voscamp’s blog, she posts Kara’s letter to Brittany in its entirety.  It begins:

Dear Brittany Maynard, This morning my best friend and I read your story. My heart ached for you, and I’m simply grieved by your terminal brain tumor, for the less than 6 months the doctor’s gave you, you just past your 29th birthday. With a heavy heart, I left my home and headed for my oncologist. I too am dying, Brittany.

My oncologist and I sat for a long time with hurting hearts for your story. We spoke in gentle tones discussing the hard path you are being asked to travel.

I came home and my friend and I sat on the bed of my five year old and prayed for you. We simply prayed you would hear my words from the most tender and beautifully broken place of my heart.

We prayed you would hear my words that are on paper coming from a place of tender love and knowing. Knowing what it is to know the horizon of your days that once felt limitless now feels to be dimming.

So hear these words from a heart full of love for you.

Read her entire letter to Brittany here. Read more on the Patheos Faith and Family Channel and follow David on Twitter.