Mercy death: My mother wanted me to help her die

Rapport 31 March 2024

Article by Magdel Louw

An hour or so before sunrise, just before her mother, Carol de Swardt, was to depart, alone, to Switzerland where she was to die an assisted death, Simonè Turkington made a log fire in her mother’s living room. In front of the crackling fire, she massaged her mother’s skin with oils, before they watched, together for the last time, the sun rising.

‘With my mom’s favourite hymns playing in the background, I said good-bye to her the best way possible. I thanked her for carrying me nine months. I said thank you for what her body had gone through the last 14 years. We cried together. My mother was thrilled by it all and filled with peace.’

Then Carol (63) went to have a shower, packed her last possessions and the two of them waited together for the taxi. At about 09:00 that morning they closed the door of her mother’s home behind them for the last time and left for George Airport, Simonè told Rapport this week

Simone (43) had watched the Netwerk24 documentary[2], Ek wil nie myself verloor nie [I do not want to lose myself ] for the first time earlier this week and saw the footage of how her mother ended her own life at the Pegasos Clinic in Liestal on 31 January this year [2024].

Simonè did not accompany her mother to Switzerland, for fear of being arrested here in South Africa, where assisted death is illegal.

That is the reason why she said good-bye to Carol for the last time at Cape Town Airport on Sunday 28 January. She barely had 25 minutes for the final farewell, she recalls, before Carol, alone in her wheelchair, boarded the plane to Switzerland.

Their parting is also captured in the documentary programme.

After watching the documentary, she cried the whole day, she said.

‘It was absolutely surrealistic seeing this is how we said our good-byes, to see there is my mother. There, at the very end, she is saying: “Spirit, shine over me.”’

On her last day on the way to the clinic, Carol marvelled about a rainbow in the sun.

‘We had a WhatsApp support group for my mum and three people took photos of the rainbows they could see from their homes, while saying “Cheers!” to my mum at the precise time that she opened that final valve. One of these photos also showed  a rainbow around the sun. What are the chances?’ Simonè says.

‘The way my mother departed, was beautiful. I have so much respect for her. She did not want to lose herself. She did not wish to be a burden or to subject herself to the rules of someone else. That is something I appreciate and fully understand.’

In 2010, skin cancer was diagnosed in Carol and she spent years in a wheelchair after her one leg had to be amputated as the result of excessive radiation during cancer treatment at a KwaZulu-Natal state hospital.

In 2020, the Department of Health finally paid damages in the amount of R 4,5 million, after a legal battle that lasted all of eight years.[3]

She spent the last years of her life in George, her entire body riddled with the painful cancer.

This cancer, amputation and court case were devastating for Carol’s family, Simonè says. ‘My heart broke for my mother. There was nothing I could do for her. I had to watch how she lost her self-confidence and personality, how she isolated herself, living in loneliness and losing the will to live. Then she took the conscious decision to end her life, in order to bequeath her house and estate to us, her children and grandchildren.

‘All that money did not help her to enjoy her life, because it could simply not stir her soul.’

During the last month Simonè stayed with her mother in George, it became possible for her to place herself in her mother’s shoes and experience for herself what a confined existence Carol had.

Initially she wanted to go on pleasant adventures, such as taking Carol to see the spring flowers in Namaqualand, but then realized that it would never work.

‘I could not take my mum places and force her to live, when she did not want to live.’

Gradually she could sense how Carol found a deep inner peace in respect of her biggest decision. ‘I arrived anxious and uncertain at my mum’s place, but the time together provided us women the opportunity to realise how precious we were for each other, to say thank you for the good times, and sorry for the bad ones.’

‘I would never want to exchange that experience for anything else. Everyone has to say good-bye to their parents at some time. The way in which it happened to us, made me a stronger, calmer, better person.’

Carol’s son, Donavan de Swardt (37), also shared this period with his mother and sister.

However, at the same time he also had to cope with a traumatic and unexpected divorce just prior to this, he told Rapport.

‘I supported my mother’s decision from the onset. I did not like it, of course, because I wanted to have her with me as long as possible. But in the end it was her decision and I support it,’ he says.

He confirms that there was something very beautiful in the fact that he knew beforehand when she would die.

‘We had enough time to come to terms with what was to happen and to say things to each other that had to be said. If it did not happen this way and she would have died unexpectedly, many important things might have remained unsaid.’

Simonè said that her mother had initially asked her to help her to end her life.

Carol had also tried to end her life on her own and even to the very end made sure that she was supplied at home with all the necessary deadly ingredients in the event that she decided to proceed with such an action again, Simonè confirms.

‘However, her biggest fear was that something might go wrong and that she, for instance, became mentally retarded, and would not be able to make the decision herself.’

Simonè said that if she found herself in a similar situation, she would do the same.

‘Without a shadow of a doubt. If I were in terrible pain and suffered and was not able to change my mindset, I wouldn’t like to feel that I am dying spiritually, even though I am physically still living. I would much rather live fully while I am alive.’

[1] This article is based on an interview with on Carol de Swardt’s daughter. It was published on 31 March 2024 in Rapport, as ‘Ek kon my ma nie dwing om te leef nie’ (‘I could not force my mother to live’) and in Netwerk 24 as ‘Genadedood: My ma wou hê ek moet haar help’ (‘Mercy killing: My mother wanted me to help her’). https://www.netwerk24.com/netwerk24/nuus/aktueel/genadedood-my-ma-wou-he-ek-moet-haar-help-sterf-20240331

[2] Netwerk24 documentary video obtained with special permission for DignitySA’s court application.

[3] https://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZAKZPHC/2020/45.pdf