Evendays

Chantal Sébire was only 52 years old when she was found dead in her home on Wednesday, just hours after French courts refused her request for doctor assisted euthanasia. Talk had been that she’d come to Switzerland to end her life, for assisted suicide, if certain criteria are met, is legal here.

Ms Sébire was horribly disfigured by esthesioneuroblastoma. She had lost both smell and taste. Her sight left her last fall. She desired to die. She wanted the suffering to end.

Can good come from death? Some long to end their suffering, calling death “deliverance”. Others, fatigued by life, see it as a portal into a world when they feel they have nothing left to offer in ours. Some accept a heroic death if it means protecting others.

Yes, there is an upside to death.

But I’ve come to see it as the ultimate evil, truly our enemy, not because it’s the opposite of life, but because it’s separation from life. Ms Sébire’s suffering was a consequence of this separation, and what she needed, what we all need, was not death, but life.

Life is greater than death. In the end it will conquer, for God is not indifferent to the suffering of Ms Sébire, nor to ours. He is the God of life. And he has the last word.

Peace on Ms Sébire. Peace on her family.