Emma chooses her own path: “After my daughter’s exam, I will say goodbye to life”

Emma Bray, a 42-year-old mother of two, has made a decision that deeply touches everyone who hears her story. While her body is slowly breaking down due to motor neurone disease, her concerns are not just about her own suffering, but especially how it impacts her children.

To protect her children from the harsh reality of her approaching death, Emma has chosen to voluntarily stop eating and drinking (VSED), a decision she will carry out this summer right after her daughter finishes her final exams. This heart-wrenching choice is made out of love and care for her children.

A Mother’s Silent Pain

Emma, from Barnstaple in North Devon, speaks candidly about her struggle. Diagnosed two years ago, she has felt the effects of the disease every single day. Now, her speech is severely impaired, she can no longer use her limbs, and even the simplest actions, such as breathing and swallowing, are increasingly difficult.

Despite receiving intensive daily care, she is no longer independent. She explains how she can’t even adjust her own glasses or pull a sheet off herself when she’s too warm. Everything that once seemed normal is now slowly slipping away.

Losing the Essence of Herself

Through her eye-tracking computer, Emma shares: “I feel like I am losing the essence of who I am. I am still loved, but I can no longer be myself. I see that sadness in the eyes of those around me.” Her words are filled with the awareness that this disease is slowly taking her away from those who love her most. The inability to hug her children is, she says, the most painful of all.

Emma’s children, aged 14 and 15, have watched their mother’s physical decline for years. They saw her crawling across the floor, now help her with almost everything, and live in a home where caregivers are always present. Despite their grief, they go to school, laugh, and show a resilience that Emma deeply admires.

She wants to spare them a “brutal death,” such as the suffocation that can come as muscles weaken. That’s why she has chosen to end her life with VSED, in a hospice, surrounded by love, music, and the sound of laughter.

A Deliberate Choice Within Legal Boundaries

According to Compassion in Dying, VSED is available to people who are fully competent and make the choice freely and without pressure. The process usually takes ten to fourteen days.

For Emma, this is the only way to retain some control over her death. She says: “VSED is not an easy death, but it is the only option the law in England gives me that allows me some autonomy.”

A Fight for Legal Recognition

Emma therefore supports the ‘Assisted Dying Bill’, a proposal that would make assisted dying possible under strict conditions. “This law could have protected the people I love,” she says.

She describes the pain of watching her children cry, being unable to offer them any comfort—not even a gentle touch or embrace, just her quiet presence in a body that is failing her.

Living Life Despite Hopelessness

Still, Emma has not let her diagnosis define her whole life. After her devastating diagnosis in July 2023, she chose quality over quantity. She took a bucket-list trip to the Maldives, threw an End of Life Party, and with friends and family, she raised over £30,000 for charity. These moments gave meaning to the time she had left.

A Life Dedicated to Helping Others

Before her illness, Emma worked in social care, helping victims of domestic violence and homelessness. Even now, she continues to care—supporting the Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA) and giving special mention to a nurse funded by the charity, whom she calls her “rock.”

An Inevitable Farewell Surrounded by Love

Emma hopes her end will be peaceful. Her wish is clear: to die in a hospice, surrounded by family and friends, with music, laughter, and card games at her bedside. She wants no fear, no medical chaos—just a conscious, loving, and calm goodbye. She emphasizes: “I don’t want to die, but I am dying. And I want to do it my way.”

A Message That Resonates

Emma wants her story to reach beyond her own life. She calls on politicians to expand their minds and empathize with people like her, who face slow goodbyes every day. “Motor neurone disease will end my life, not the law. But the law can help me do it with dignity.”

Original article source: https://mamasenomas.nl/moeder-emma-kiest-voor-haarzelf-na-mijn-dochters-examen-stap-ik-uit-het-leven/