Opening up on our Catholic News podcast, lay Catholic Matt Parkes explained how his father decided against killing himself when he got diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease, allowing beautiful moments of reconciliation between a family that had had many struggles.
With the Assisted Dying Bill currently making its way through Parliament, which would make assisted suicide legal, Matt expressed great gratitude that his father, Jeff, ultimately opted against ending his life prematurely.
This decision gave Jeff the chance to reconcile himself with his ex-wife, and also his daughter, both of whom he had been estranged from.
To hear more of Matt’s story, listen to the full podcast below;
He said:
“If he’d gone ahead with that or Dignitas or whichever route he’d eventually worked out a way of doing, what would have happened was that reconciliation, for example, with my mum would never have happened.
“The relationship that was then finally almost rebuilt and really deepened with my sister wouldn’t have happened. My dad, he liked Western movies, but he also liked books. Louis L’Amour was one of his favourites… He liked lots of reading. He’d read The Economist and the Financial Times and the Sun, all at the same time…
“But he also loved these Western books. Louis L’Amour was one of his favourite authors. My sister would sit with him, even in the very, very end, right at the very end, she would sit with him in the hospital, eventually, when he died, holding his hand and reading Louis L’Amour.”
Matt’s sister and Jeff had a difficult relationship, with Jeff spending a lot of time out of the house when her and Matt were growing up, and also arguing a lot with their mother.
Yet these final moments were a precious gift both to Jeff, and Matt’s sister.
Matt said:
“Even though he could no longer speak by that point, he had to raise a voice so that he could hear. But he was able to give indication with a sound that he was able to hear her, and wanted her to continue reading. So he was able to enjoy this experience right the way till the end.”
He added:
“I was chatting with her [his sister] about it, just reminiscing. She said it was such a precious time, such a unique time. It was so rich. It was such a blessing. There was such a connection that was able to be made there. He actually died in the end holding her hand.
“She was reading to him. She was reading a Louis L’Amour, and that’s when he died.”
Things could have been very different, Matt explained, as when Jeff first fell ill and was unsure what was going on, he was adamant that he didn’t want to live any longer.
Matt said:
“In 2011, he was really determined to end his life. He said to me, I need you to help me. I said, ‘Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t do that’. He didn’t have a faith. I’m a Catholic, and I explained to him, ‘Listen, I know you’re going to disagree with me as soon as I say this, but I can’t collude in that. I can’t assist in that.’
“We debated it, quite heated debate, because he really strongly disagreed with it. He would go into quite a detailed thinking about how he would do it and everything.
“For about six months, it was very difficult because he would speak to me quite often about it, and I would try and encourage him to get additional help or speak to people, other people, professionals about it, his doctors, but he didn’t really want any of that interference as he saw it.”
Eventually, in 2014, Matt said, “He was diagnosed with this condition called PSP, which stands for Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, which is a very rare condition. It’s like a mix between Parkinson’s disease and motor neuron disease, something like that.”
Those moments with Jeff on his death bed are now precious memories for Matt and his sister:
“I took some photos the day before he died of my mum holding his hand. That was something my sister and I looked at it afterwards and thought, when we were little children, we wouldn’t have ever envisaged seeing that.”
