The Last Chapter

Rumble Strip

Rob Mermin recounts the profound experience of helping his best friend, Bill Morancy, end his life through Vermont's Act 39. The episode tra

Key takeaways

• Bill Morancy was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer that had spread to his liver.
• Vermont's Act 39, the Patient Choice and Control at End of Life Act, allows eligible residents to hasten death via self-administered medication.

Main topics

• End-of-life dignity
• Vermont Act 39

Notable quotes

My best friend asked me to help him die.

Conclusion

A moving reflection on the beauty of a planned death and the enduring

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Well, here's another way I could begin. Speaker 1 (0:01) Okay. Speaker 2 (0:04) My best friend asked me to help him die. Speaker 1 (0:09) That's Rob Merman, and this is Rumble Strip. Rob Merman and Bill Maranci lived in Montpelier, Vermont, in neighboring apartments. They were best friends. And this is a story about how Rob helped Bill die. I made this episode some years ago, and I've been thinking a lot about it lately. So I'm playing it again here on the show. Welcome. Speaker 2 (0:33) Bill moved into this apartment house a week before I did, so we became neighbors. I would go knock on his door for things, and he would knock on my door. In fact, it got to the point where at one point he moved to the apartment below me. So in order to contact him, I would take a broom and bang on my floor, and he would take a broom and bang on his ceiling and reply, and we had this code of, you want to come out and play? that kind of thing. And we would go out and play baseball. We'd play catch. We would play paddleball. We'd play tennis. We never kept score, and there was no competition. Everyone else who wanted to play with us always wanted to keep score, and we said, you can't play with us then. This is our ball, and we're taking it away. One day, we were playing tennis. The rec department had taken down the tennis nets. So there are no nets. At one point we had a Spalding, one of these pink rubber balls that we had when we were kids, high bouncers. And we were playing with that on the court that had no net, whacking it back and forth. But it went so far, it went over the 30-foot fence. So I went around the fence to get it. And then from that other court, I whacked it as hard as I could to get it over the fence. back to him, and he whacked it back to me. So suddenly we're like these midgets on this huge tennis court, whacking it with all, and laughing and laughing. And walking by were a couple of teachers with their preschoolers. And the preschoolers, you know, little three-year-olds were holding on to this rope like a parade of ducklings. And they stopped outside the courts watching these two elder guys whacking. this rubber ball as hard as we could over this 30-foot fence. And finally, one little girl, one little three-year-old came closer and said in a real loud voice, when I grow up, I want to play that game. Speaker 1 (2:39) And Bill laughed and laughed and laughed. Speaker 2 (2:43) Yeah, we were like two 12-year-olds. It's the kind of buddy you would have when you're a child. Speaker 2 (2:57) I've had my physical traumas throughout my life. I was in a car accident 25 years ago and broke my neck and survived that somehow. 12 years ago, I had cancer, survived that. About two years ago, I was diagnosed with Parkinson's. So one thing after another with me. And meanwhile, Bill was 70 years old in great shape. And Bill doesn't have a car. Bill lives, he lived a very simple lifestyle. He walked to work, which was a few blocks away from the apartment. He lived in a tiny apartment. His meals were very simple. He ate the same things every day. He totally simplified his life. He didn't have his own doctor. He didn't feel any need for it. So he was figuring. As long as we're neighbors, he'd be checking in on me, that I was the one who was going to need some help. I'm in my late 60s. And one day, he became out of breath and knocked on my floor and asked me to come down and see what's going on. And I said, I'm taking you to the hospital. He said, no, I don't go to hospitals. I'll sleep this off, and we'll see what's going on tomorrow. But he was very weak. He could barely walk up the stairs to his apartment. Speaker 2 (4:24) And I took him to the hospital, and they took some x-rays just to check him out. The doctor came back in. Bill was lying in the hospital bed. I was sitting by him. Doctor looked at me, looked at Bill with a serious face, and Bill suspected something. And he said to the doctor, you can say anything in front of him. You know, he's a good friend. And the doctor said, x-rays show massive... pancreatic cancer that spread through the liver. And Bill immediately responded, I know what that means. That's a death sentence. I asked the doctor, I said, well, what is the prognosis here? And she said, terminal within six months. Speaker 2