Frank Cunningham, the love of my life for over fifty years, died of acute leukemia on February 4, 2022, at age eighty-one. Frank died as he wished: through the Canadian medical assistance in dying (MAID) program, at home in Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), lying on our living room sofa, with me holding his hands.

When Frank told his sister, Candy, who has a progressively degenerative disease of her own, that he didn’t want to die in an institution, surrounded by strangers, connected to machines, Candy said that living in the state of Indiana, she wished that she had the choice to die with love and dignity.

But she does not. She is one of the many millions of people in North America who, unlike Frank, are denied that option. The story of Frank’s death — one that was preceded by severe pain but eventually was carried out on his terms, in ways that avoided as much discomfort and suffering as possible — shows how the end of life does not have to be drenched in misery.