(LifeSiteNews) — In a powerful new video in the “Dying to Meet You” series, a young Canadian woman described the gut-wrenching experience of losing her grandmother to assisted suicide.
Lovanie said that she doesn’t think her grandmother, whom she greatly admired and was close to, could have imagined the impact her death by lethal injection would have on her granddaughter.
“I think that in that moment of vulnerability, she just thought: ‘I am a burden,’” Lovanie told Amanda Achtman, the creator of “Dying to Meet You.” “My health is stopping everybody else’s life from going forward, and I will just remove myself from this.”
“She was reliable, and she was strong, and then when she said she wanted euthanasia, I felt like she just gave up,” Lovanie said. “It was undoubtedly the fear of pain, the fear of embarrassment, the fear of shame that could bring for her the loss of strength. She was no longer the matriarch she used to be.”
READ: Even Canadian prisoners are dying by euthanasia now
Her grandmother’s death by assisted suicide, however, denied her family the chance to surround her during her final days or months. “She was dependent on people to dress, to feed, to just move her in bed,” Lovanie shared. “She was well-regulated on medication, but she was so afraid of the future. All the kids, all the grandkids, we wanted to be there. She was afraid of seeming weak, even though we were all ganging up to help her.”
“My biggest fear is that it’ll encourage the rest of my family to follow through in the future. I don’t want people in my family to see it as a power move they can pull whenever times are difficult. The dignity would have been for her to stay with her family through and realize how much we loved her and cared for her willingly, not as a burden.”
Losing her grandmother to assisted suicide also had an impact on her own mental health struggles. “It was really hard, because I had also struggled with mental health in the past few years,” she told Achtman. “Why should I keep swimming? Why should I just keep climbing? It’s no use if the strongest person in my life chose to give up.”
“What do you think the intergenerational toll that euthanasia has?” Achtman asked.
“I think it’s very hard for the rest,” Lovanie replied. “How do you explain to your kids? How do you tell them how strong and wonderful she was? Then they ask you, how was she in the last days? And then you tell them: ‘Oh, she gave up.’ It’s significant because it ends everything. There’s no: ‘I did a bad mistake, but you know what? I can keep on living.’ There’s nothing like that after it. It robs us of hope and strength. Death does not have to be sudden or chemically induced.”
READ: Trump admin wants to help Canadian woman rethink euthanasia, Glenn Beck says
In a previous video, Achtman interviewed Benjamin Turland, who lost both of his grandmothers to assisted suicide within two months of each other.
“With both of them, it makes you ask the question: What did I do wrong that you would want to end it now, and not stay with me for a little bit longer?” Turland said. “If I could have had two more days with you, would I take that? Yes. Over anything. Because now I don’t have you. What could I have done that would make you feel like a day, two days, three days, is worth it? Even if you can’t talk … even if I just get to hold your hand.”
The grief of those whose loved ones are killed by assisted suicide in Canada is rarely discussed or even acknowledged, but in 2023, the Globe and Mail published a report revealing that many Canadians are suffering from a “complicated grief.” Alician Duncan has revealed that after her mother was euthanized, she was diagnosed with PTSD – which would make her qualify for euthanasia if it becomes legal for those with mental illness.
