The last goodbye

With Voluntary Assisted Dying legislation before the NSW parliament and a battle raging between advocates and opponents, The Weekly meets three people whose emotional real-life experiences have put them at the heart of the debate.

- GENEVIEVE GANNON

When Jan Edwards speaks about her husband of 43 years, she does so with a rueful chuckle, recalling his intellect and his relentless curiosity that refused to be satisfied. Tim Edwards was a tall, “pretty good-looking” and active man who was family-oriented and concerned with making the world a better place. “If I had to describe him in one word, it would be vital,” Jan says. “His curiosity meant he was always seeking.” In his obituary, she wrote: “He was a visionary who could see what the world could be and dedicated most of his life to making it happen."

Yet, in his last days, this man with a zest for life wanted nothing more than to be allowed to die.

Tim had mesothelioma, the rare cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. He'd acquired it as an 18-year-old, working a summer job to pay for his university education. The disease often takes decades to appear, but when it does, it is effectively a death sentence. The five-year survival rate is five per cent. When the doctor delivered the grim prognosis, it was not death Tim feared, but the agony and dependency that would precede it.

“As soon as he figured out what the problem was (with the law], he did what he always did. He [conducted] an enormous amount of research and connected with all sorts of organisations that were working with people like him, not just to find out [information] but to assist,” says Jan. "He began working immediately to get the law changed."

Tim was diagnosed in January 2017. Doctors treated him with four different types of chemotherapy, but by October he was told he only had about three months left to live.