The Daily - Documenting a Death by Euthanasia

Episode Date: January 24, 2022

This episode contains strong language. Marieke Vervoort was a champion Paralympic athlete from Belgium. In 2016, Vervoort, who had a progressive disease, announced her retirement from professional sports and spoke of her desire to undergo euthanasia.Today, we hear Vervoort’s story from Lynsey Addario, a photojournalist who documented the end of her life.“In most of my experiences covering Iraq and Afghanistan and Democratic Republic of Congo and Darfur, I’m photographing people who are trying not to die,” Lynsey said. “Marieke was the first person I had really met who wanted to die.”Guest: Lynsey Addario, a photojournalist who spent three years with Marieke Vervoort.Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: Knowing she had the legal right to die helped Marieke Vervoort live her life. It propelled her to medals at the Paralympics. But she could never get away from the pain.Lynsey Addario spent nearly three years photographing Vervoort as she prepared to die by choice. It became one of the most emotional assignments — and friendships — of her life.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Lately I've been covering a lot of funerals. I find myself at the graveside, surrounded by family members. I put myself in their situation, and what would I do if I had lost my mother, or if I had lost my father or one of my siblings to this pandemic? Sadly, the feeling is quite familiar in a sense that I've spent so much of my career covering death and covering these really traumatic moments. My name is Lindsay Adario. We've been reporting on the dire situation in Somalia where a devastating famine has

only been spreading. And I have spent the better part of the last two decades covering conflict and humanitarian crises. Now we've got some truly important images to share with you, taken by award-winning photojournalist Lindsay Adario. In most of my experiences covering Iraq and Afghanistan and Democratic Republic of Congo and Darfur, I'm photographing people who are trying not to die,

who are trying to stay alive at all costs. Marike was the first person I had really met who wanted to die. Hello? Are you talking with Mrs. Marshmallow? No. I had never met or photographed anyone who would constantly talk about how much she was looking forward to that moment where she could finally be at peace. You know that I even don't know lots of pieces of the week. I don't know what happened. And peace for her was death.

And the rest is counting down that I can die. Whereas in the world that I had come from, peace for the people I photographed meant no war. It certainly did not mean death. It meant the antithesis of death. A lot of people, it's very sad, but I'm very happy. She wanted to show that death could be peaceful, that it was something that she was choosing.

So just let me know what you think about it. Okay? Bye-bye. From The New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is The Daily. Two decades ago, Belgium passed the world's most liberal euthanasia laws, allowing thousands of patients who suffer severe medical conditions to end their lives. But nearly 20 years later, the process remains fraught for those trying to die,

as well as their families. Today, photojournalist Lindsay Adario documented one woman's experience. It's Monday, January 24th. In 2017, the New York Times sent me and writer Andrew Kay to profile Marika Vervoer. Marika had been very public about her desire to do euthanasia, and we thought it would be an interesting profile to go get a better sense of why, of what her daily life was like that was inspiring this real drive to end her life. But I didn't know much about Marieke when I first got the assignment. All I knew was that she was a

very accomplished Paralympic athlete from Belgium. And when I started to do some research on her, I couldn't believe how much she had accomplished. She had won four Paralympic medals, four world records for track. She was the world champion of the triathlon twice. So a new Paralympic record, She was the world champion of the triathlon twice. Gold in the 100, gold in the 200. Marika Vought. So a new Paralympic record, Marika Vought, 1969.

20.40 seconds for Marika Vought. So she takes the gold medal. And competed in the Ironman in Hawaii in her wheelchair. Three medals now, all gold for the Belgian. 100. All of the finalists can be very pleased with what they did, but it's Vervoort of Belgium

who's got the record and the gold. She was just this incredible force of nature. Vervoort has a degenerative spinal condition that leaves her in extreme pain and says she sometimes sleeps only 10 minutes a night and needs around-the-clock care. In fact, she was recently

quoted as saying that after the Rio Games, she was considering euthanasia, which is legal in Belgium. Today, she clarified those reports. In 2016, Marika held a press conference, and she announced that the Rio Games would be her last and she was retiring from professional sports. Yes, this is my last Paralympic Games. I have a progressive disease and I signed my euthanasia papers already in 2008 because it's really, really hard to handle and to suffer with this disease. But the euthanasia, it gives me a feeling of rest. I live with a good feeling. Whatever would happen, I have my papers in my hand, but I'm still enjoying every little moment. Well, when the moment comes that I have more bad days than good days, then I have my euthanasia papers. I remember the first time I met Marike. I remember watching her being wheeled out by her nurse, Anne.

She wore a Nike tracksuit, and she had this white, blonde, spiky hair that she used gel to spike straight up. She sort of gave this air of, like, no bullshit. She sort of greeted Andrew and I like, okay, you know, here you are, this is what we're going to do. And off we went. I think she just assumed it would be, you know, one or two trips to visit her and write a piece on her life. But it ended up being almost three years that we spent

with her. Hello. Hello. Okay. I need to go to here. My precious. Please don't Let from us What I have to say

I just want to talk about how you're feeling Just because now we've known each other For eight months Yeah since that Eight months a lot changed eight months ago I had still good times but now they're only bad times and I the control over my hands is going slowly more and more away not this night but the night before three times I lost control over my hands but then I cried really hard the whole night because what is going on here

I'm really scared I I'm so scared. So what scares you? Are you afraid of dying? Are you afraid of the pain? Are you afraid of... What makes you scared? What's the next thing that's going to happen? Marike often described her pain as a pain so much that her mind could handle it, but her body just couldn't. Suddenly, she would start shaking. Often it would start with her leg, and then it would sort of envelop her entire body.

She would start coughing or choking, and suddenly she would have an all-body seizure. At this point I had known Marike almost a year. I had seen her through some pretty horrific nights. But I still was sort of reckoning with how difficult it is to decide when to die. I had never really seen someone make these decisions and really the things that went into consideration. Belgium is one of a handful of countries where euthanasia is legal for non-terminally ill

patients. The requirements, though, are pretty rigorous. You know, for Marike, in addition to the sort of bureaucracy and the logistics of getting the signatures. You know, there were really emotional decisions to make. I have to choose a date and an hour and who had to stay with me when it has to happen. That's really, really, really difficult to say that. And as long as I had known Marike and as much pain as she was in, she still had not selected a date to die. How will you know when the right time is? I mean, how does someone know when the time is right? I feel now that my time is upcoming. Is there a limit to the people

you can have in the room? Like, is there a number, a maximum number, or you decide how you want it? I decide for myself. But I decided already that I say first goodbye to my parents before I go to the room. Marike was pretty adamant that she did not want her parents in the room when she ended her life. I think in the beginning, her parents were not supportive of Marike's decision

to do euthanasia, and they finally came around. But I think that period where they just could not come on board really angered Marike, and she felt like she wouldn't be able to go through with it if they were there watching her. I think it was sort of her way of protecting them by not letting them see her pass away and it was causing a huge amount of stress not only for Marike but for her parents. parents. Marike's mother and I ended up spending a fair amount of time together. We would go and have tea down in the cafeteria in the hospital when we were both sitting by her bedside, or on occasion Marike's mother would invite me back to her apartment to have a glass of champagne. would invite me back to her apartment to have a glass of champagne. And one evening, I had gone to see Marike,

and she was sleeping for hours. And her mother, Odette, said, come to my house. It was a few minutes' walk from the hospital. And it's because I feel good with you. I feel you are... And she took out a goodbye letter that she had written to Marieke. My heart, my everything. I'm scared that you are going away in the mist and never be with me.

Her English wasn't perfect at the time, but she really wanted to read it to me in English. I showed you the bag, open, and then I feel your hair. What do you give her then? I don't know. Why don't you just tell her what you want to tell her? A few weeks after reading me that letter, Odette collapsed in the bathroom and was rushed to the hospital,

where she was put into an induced coma and ended up staying there for several months. It was unclear whether she would even survive. My mother landed up in intensive care. Many times the doctor said, prepare yourself. I think it's the last moment. She had actually wanted to schedule her euthanasia after the end of February, and at that point, her mother was in a coma, and no one really knew what would happen.

I had a discussion with my father as well. I told him, I don't know what to do anymore. My plan was to do the euthanasia after mom's birthday, but now she is in this condition, I can't do it. I can't do it. It would be very mean of me that she wake up and her daughter is away. My father told me, Marike, you don't have to wait on mom. It will be always very, very hard for everybody, especially for my mom. And after, when her mom finally woke up and came to consciousness, Marike talked so fondly for the first time about how their family really became a family.

Before, we lived our own life. Now we live more together. It was very special. So does that give you hesitation to want to do it now? Because now your mom's awake and she might leave the hospital soon. So now do you feel like, okay, her birthday has passed, she's awake. Do you want to wait? Yeah, but I don't. There is something that's holding me.

I still hope that they found the therapy that's going better. So I think there is a chance that I feel a little bit better, that I have more comfort. And the only thing that I want is comfort. After Marike's mother came out of the coma, Marike sort of stopped talking about ending her life. Hi, Lindtry. I hope for all the best for New Year. Big, big hug. Enjoy this evening. Bye-bye. She just stopped talking about it until the following fall. Hi, sunshine. I got terrible days. Today again, I got a lot of pain.

It's getting too hard for me. It's difficult to say to you. I decided to do the euthanasia. I don't want to have my 40th birthday. So now you know the bad news. I hear you, Jada. Bye-bye, sunshine. We'll be right back. Ready.

Ready. So, last year when you were close to choosing a date before your mother's birthday, we talked about how you envision the end of your life, who would be in the room. Has that changed? Do you want your parents in the room now? What are you thinking? It's too tough. It's too tough. For them? For them and for me as well. Yeah.

I think they die a little bit with me. So who are you thinking? Still the same? Yes. Yes, it's a beautiful ending, but that doesn't mean that it's something bad. It means, it's for me a really good feeling, and I'm really thinking about it, and I really, I hope that it's April that I can do it. Marike was really adamant that she wanted to end her life before her 40th birthday in early May,

and she was desperate to get all the bureaucratic steps done. She needed three signatures from three different doctors, including her euthanasia doctor, Wim Diestelmans. She had to meet with one psychiatrist and also get a signature from that doctor. And for each of those appointments, she had to physically go to the hospital, which required having someone shuttle her back and forth on several occasions, something that wasn't necessarily easy for someone like Marieke, who didn't drive and who was in a wheelchair and who suffered from consistent seizures.

And I think it became clear that she still had so much to do before she could confirm her death date. Got an appointment so fast. I'm sad. I cry a lot. I got your message. And let's try and talk because I know how sad you are. Is there any way that you might be able to do it? Or you think it will be impossible because the timing is just too short anyway sending uh love bye my sweetheart it's just getting really difficult. My doctor called

and I have to go to two different doctors who have to decide if my story is grounded or not. And also the psychiatrist. But he's also on holiday until after Easter. It's so tiring. And eventually she just ran out of time. The doctor said that they were all going on vacation for Easter and that it would be impossible for her to make her early May date. It's going so bad, and I don't have any freedom anymore.

I'm getting 40 years old, and I'm living like an old woman in my house. The next date Marike chose was at the end of September, but this date would end up getting pushed back as well. I was sort of on standby to go see Marike in September and to be with her at the time of her death. And so we were in constant contact.

At some point, Marike sent me a message saying that she had been rushed to the hospital with sepsis. She had an infection and she would need to stay in the hospital for two weeks at the end of September, which meant that her date would be pushed back. And I couldn't understand why, because, of course, I thought, well, if she's sick, couldn't they just end her life then? And that's just not the way it works. She had to be cured first and then could go home.

Essentially, she was too sick to die. So in the time that I had known Marike, she had selected three dates to end her life. The first date was pushed back because her mother ended up falling into a coma for several months. The second date was pushed back because of bureaucracy. She couldn't get the paperwork she needed. And the third date was pushed back because she ended up with an infection and was very sick. It was so ironic because the things that made living hard were also the things that made dying hard. Family, bureaucracy, and her own health.

I decided I need to go see her in person. And I showed up, I sat down, I pulled up a chair, and I took out my notebook and I took out my phone, and I said, we need to talk about where you're at. Do you still want to end your life? Or is this, you know, now do you want to postpone as you've done in the past? And she was absolutely clear she was ready and that's all she wanted. And that's when she picked up the phone and said, well, let's call Wim and see when he's available. And she called him, and the date was October 22nd. And so right then and there, she chose the date.

So then we went through everything. So I have, you will be in a red casket with white flowers. What type of flowers? Tulips. Tulips, ah. Okay. Or roses. Or?

Tulips or roses. Not both. I think roses. Okay, white roses. Okay. You mentioned before you wanted butterflies to come out. Yes. Ik denk rozen. Ik denk rozen. Oké. Je hebt eerder verteld dat je boterhaven wilde laten komen. Ja. Oké, dus vertel het nogmaals. Ik wil er zeker van zijn. Als ze buiten gaan met hun kast,

dan zal er een kleine kast met witte boterhaven zijn. white butterflies and they let them free as a sign that they're finally released out of the body that's in pain and suffering.

I'm so glad that you're here today. Me too. I'm so happy. Lindsay, you know, you are really somebody that's really in my heart. Thank you. About 30 minutes later, her parents walked in the hospital room. About 30 minutes later, her parents walked in the hospital room. Her father, Joss, and her mother, Odette, took seats by her side. She immediately brought up, this is the new date, it will be October 22nd,

and I really want Lindsay to be in the room, and I want her to take photographs of my death. Marike said, and I also want you in the room. And her mom started crying and her father got a little choked up. Like, finally, the invitation is there. Do you stay in Belgium until the funeral? So it depends on what happens. That's why I'm trying to figure out what the plan is. So I'll stay at your house. After the euthanasia, I will move to a hotel.

So the evening... You can stay in my house. I know, but without you, once the euthanasia, I will feel funny. I mean, I don't know. Let's see how we feel. I will feel funny. I think it will don't know. Let's see how we feel. I will feel funny. I think it will be very difficult. Yeah, it's weird.

It's weird. Without you, with you there. Yeah. It's weird being with the dead one in the house. I know. Just alone, me and you dead. And my ghost is going to... I'm going to get you. dead yeah I can see you bothering me at night you know You sleep putting my hand on your shoulder. And you're scared.

A week later, I had to fly to New York for my mother's 80th birthday. And at the same time, Andrew Kay, the writer on the story, decided to go visit Marike one last time. And it was a Saturday night, and she was having a sort of going-away party before her death. And I remember I was at a matinee with my mother. That's sort of all my mother wanted for her 80th birthday, was that her four daughters were with her.

Right as we're walking in, I remember I got a message from Andrew that he was at the going away party and that it was really emotional. And he said, you know, I think it's really happening. And suddenly in that moment, it hit me that she was actually going to die. I left New York on that Sunday to fly back to London and landed Monday morning, literally went home for an hour, changed the clothes in my suitcase, grabbed my cameras, got back to the train station, got on the Eurostar, went directly from the station to her. She was in the hospital at that point and just sat at her bedside for like as long as I could and then asked her what time

she wanted me to be there the next morning, which was the last day of her life. She wanted me to be there the next morning, which was the last day of her life. I woke up and I thought, this is the last day of her life. And I calculated the amount of hours she still had to live. The time that she was supposed to end her life was about 7 o'clock or 8 o'clock that evening. So I remember thinking, okay, she only has about 12 hours to live. And what does it feel like to live out your last 12 hours? When I got to the hospital, I thought she might be sort of somber.

I had no idea what her temperament would be. And when I walked in, there were already two friends of hers drinking kava with her at her bedside. So she was laughing and joking around with them. I mean, she was having the time of her life. You can do it! Yes, you can! Believe you can! I felt like sort of the heaviness was more on me than on her. The most beautiful day in my life was the bandage jump and also winning the gold medal. Of course. Those two things.

Her mother Odette looked beautiful that day. She had her hair done and was wearing this very patterned, pretty sweater. And I just couldn't stop thinking, what must it feel like for Odette and Jost? You know, her parents, how do you walk into this moment? How do you walk into a hospital room to pick up your child, to usher them to their death. We arrived back at the house, and Marike kind of disappeared into the bathroom. And she was in the bathroom for a while. When she came out, her house was already full of people. It was about 20 people came over.

And Marike got onto the couch and fell asleep. She completely passed out for about two hours. People went and sat next to her, cried, talked to her, hugged her. She didn't move. I think she had medicated herself. Maybe at that point she realized emotionally this was going to be difficult. At that point, her father came to me and said, if the euthanasia doctors arrive at seven o'clock and she cannot answer the question of whether she is ready to go through euthanasia, they will leave and it will not happen. At about 10 minutes before seven o'clock,

Marike just sat straight up on the couch and said, I'm back. And she said, where's my kava? And she started drinking and eating chocolate and saying goodbye and laughing and having fun with her friends. And the doctors came in at seven o'clock and then Wim came over to her and basically said something like, okay, we're ready. And she had a half a glass of champagne, and she chugged it and then asked for another. And stuffed her mouth with Maltesers, which was her favorite chocolate. And then she offered chocolates to Wim, and he sort of grimaced, like, that's disgusting, I'm not going to eat Maltesers. She asked for sort of a moment to finish eating and drinking.

And then each one of the doctors took her by her hand and wheeled her down the hall. And they prepared her for her death. Then at that point, they called in her parents for a private goodbye. A few minutes later, Wim came out and said, okay, come in. We all filed into the room. I realized I had never said goodbye. And so I very quickly ran over and just kissed her on the forehead and said goodbye. And it was very, very quick. And I started with the injections in the catheter in her neck.

I continued photographing until she was officially pronounced dead. And then we sort of all pulled away and gave the parents some time with her alone. We stepped out into the hall, and we all thought that Marike would want us all to open a bottle of kava for her. None of us could believe she did it. That was what everyone said, like,

she really did it. She did it. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. The Times reports that new COVID infections have started to fall across the country, signaling that the Omicron wave of the pandemic has finally peaked. Through Friday, the U.S. was averaging 720,000 new cases a day, down from about 807,000 cases the previous week. Even so, deaths, which typically lag infections, continue to grow, surpassing 2,000 a day. Those, too, are expected to fall in the

coming weeks. And over the weekend, British officials said that Russia was developing plans to install a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine, perhaps as a prelude to an invasion. Russia denied the claim, but U.S. intelligence officials said that the British information appeared to be accurate. Russia has already deployed more than 100,000 troops to Ukraine's borders that could, U.S. officials say, attack at any moment. Today's episode was produced by Sayer Kaveto. It was edited by Annie Brown, Wendy Doerr, and Michael Benoit, and engineered by Corey Schreppel and Marion Lozano. Our theme music is by Jim Rundberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly.

Special thanks to Andrew Kay, Becky Leibowitz, Randall Archibald, and Andrew Doss. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bavaro. See you tomorrow.