Choosing to Live, Choosing to Die: A Memoir of My Husband

Carolyne Lee

Sep 2021 · Australian Scholarly Publishing

About this ebook

At 45, Bill Johnson, faced with chronic illness and the loss of everything important to him, decided to die, seemingly in stark contradiction to how he’d lived his life. Since his devastating accident at 13, he’d fought for decades against disability and prejudice to achieve a fulfilling and successful life. As his wife, Carolyne Lee witnessed his final conundrum, and was persuaded to support him as he died by euthanasia. This is the story of Bill’s death and his life, much of which the author discovered afterwards, in seeking to understand his fearless final decision.

‘Somehow I must tell of that day … It is, after all, the initiating event of his story. It caused everything that followed: the bad, first, which endured for a long time. But also the good. This event set up the defining paradox of his life. To fight endlessly for a satisfying quality of life, but once that quality was gone, to face death with more than bravery; to embrace it.’

‘A moving and intensely reflective journey into a life, a love and a death.’ —Margaret Simons, Walkley Award-winning journalist and author