Several years ago, we started keeping a notebook “to help our communication.” I liked the idea more than Brian did but eventually he took to it, using it to let me know that he’d gone for a walk, or we needed toilet paper, or he was out running errands. The notebook also made it easier for him not to use his phone, and he liked that a lot. The notebooks had begun, when we first married, with my leaving a scrap of paper on the kitchen counter, anchored by a saltshaker. It might say: Your mother called or Dinner with So-and-So Saturday night. Brian found this unsatisfactory—probably slipshod, certainly unserious—and so he asked for a notebook. A few years ago, each notebook began to have very specific things wrong with it: too big, too small, the days not dated, the hours not noted. I made every single change （not always nicely） and eventually we settled on a series of navy-blue spiral notebooks and I learned to put the day and the date at the top of every page, in large letters. I learned to list things separately and clearly and I learned that being clever or cute （drawings, stickers, questions） was not only a waste of time but annoying to him. We went through dozens of those navy-blue notebooks, and by the time we went to Zurich, it was one of the few methods of communication that did not fail us regularly.
I have them still.
Monday, January 27, 2020, Zurich
My tone in correspondence with Dignitas was always restrained pleading, plus a little humor, to show that we would not be difficult, and a thread of please-note-my-very-Swiss-attention-to-detail. I have become as English as possible （you cannot have Jewish geshrei-ing and Italian agitarsi with the Swiss German, is what I believe）。 Every email I send them has either the words quite or a bit or perhaps and usually all three. I want to demonstrate patience, clarity, and some sort of appealing and demure stoicism.
We are a bit concerned that since our contact person is not in the office this week, we will receive no information about planning until after January 6.
That does feel to us like a long time before we can even begin to plan.
When you write that our contact person “will be in touch as soon as possible,” what is that time frame, please?
Thank you for all of your help.
Brian Ameche and Amy Bloom
Von: Amy Bloom
Gesendet: Dienstag, 17. Dezember 2019 15:44
An: Dignitas Betreff: Birth certificate received
Dear Mrs. Bloom, Dear Mr. Ameche,
Your contact person will get back to you as soon as possible, latest after our holidays on 06 January 2020.
Your sincerely, Team DIGNITAS
DIGNITAS
Menschenwürdig leben Menschenwürdig sterben
Monday Evening, January 27, 2020, Zurich
I hope to be patient, stoic, and demure with Dr. G., when he comes to our hotel. He’s phoned me twice and moved our interview twice and we are now, oddly, settled on Monday at 10 P.M. The late hour makes it seem shadier and more important. I worry that Dr. G. will stop at the front desk and they will see that he’s here to interview Brian, to give him the medical green light for his appointment on Thursday—and someone, some well-meaning, life-affirming bellhop or night manager, will stop us. I wonder if I should loiter in the lobby to keep this from happening. Brian says I should do nothing of the kind. I try to figure out what kind of answers Brian will need to give Dr. G. and how I should behave. I put on my black shirt and my black cardigan and look in the mirror. The Swiss seem quite conservative, so this might be the right note to strike. I want to demonstrate support, of the right kind, whatever that may be. Fortunately, I didn’t marry for money, and no matter how hard the Swiss authorities dig, it will be clear that I do not have “a financial interest or benefit” for marrying Brian or for supporting his ending his life. Do they look for signs of true brokenheartedness and not just mere resignation? This “evidence of financial interest or benefit” is, as it turns out, the loophole on which all of Dignitas’s services depend. Swiss law says, explicitly, that it is illegal to assist or encourage a suicide if you have a clear financial interest; the law says “selfish interests,” which seem to me to cover more than cash in the event of the person’s death. However, if you do not, you can assist someone in ending their life—and that’s how Dignitas has done it for three thousand people, so far.
September 2005, Durham, Connecticut
How We Met
Brian and I fell in love the way some middle-aged people in unhappy partnerships and in small towns do: liberal Democrats in a Republican town, ethnic types in a town full of Northern Europeans, opinionated loudmouths, and people who were willing to man the Durham Democrats Hot Dog Stand （hot dogs and cider） every September at the fair. I overlooked his bad haircut and aviator glasses. I’m sure he had to overlook my lack of interest in sports and my impatience （Brian could talk about a plastic gazebo or additional parking at the library for hours）。 We had been walking together, since our partners were not walkers, and talking together in public, at our local Democrats breakfast club, and then, suddenly, talking in private. He said, I was a three-sport captain in high school, and I laughed. He said, It would have been four sports but you can’t do lacrosse and baseball. Is that right, I said, and he took my hand. He said, What’s your family like? I said, Jews from New York. You? He said, Well, we’re a football family. We have three Heisman trophies in my family. I said, What’s a Heisman, and he kissed me. I kissed him back and, sensibly, we avoided each other for the next year. After a year, and some martinis in New Haven at the end of the day, he asked me to take a walk with him.
He said, I’m not stupid. I know how this will end. You’ll tell me we should not do this to the people we love, or I’ll tell you, and we will go back to our lives, where we should be. And I will never get over this. Or, we blow up our lives and be together.
I just want to say this, he said, before we walk back to our cars. I know who you could be with. Someone rich, someone fancy, some guy your sister finds for you. But I know who you should be with. You should be with a guy who doesn’t mind that you’re smarter than he is, who doesn’t mind that most of the time, you’ll be the main event. You need to be with a guy who supports how hard you work and who’ll bring you a cup of coffee late at night. I don’t know if I can be that guy, he said, tears in his eyes, but I’d like a shot.
We married.
Monday Evening Continued, January 27, 2020, Zurich
As I understand it, Dr. G. is both our guide through the process and a possible speed bump. Brian’s clear on everything except the day and date, and I make the decision that the day and the date cannot be important because drilling him on it frightens us and wears us out. The friend-of-a-friend who’d brought her father with brain cancer to Dignitas told me that it was very important that Brian open the hotel room door, showing that he’s in charge of the process. I tell Brian this and he nods but I can tell he’s not going to jump up at the first knock. Brian is not someone who rushes （period） to host, at any gathering we’ve ever had. He loves being the guest and he makes up for it by doing a ton of dishes after. I don’t know how to make sure he answers the door or even if it’s important. I just keep saying: The doctor’s gonna knock on our hotel room door. （I’m also worried about etiquette. Will the doctor expect a cup of tea? Does he look like the Grim Reaper? No and no.）