Personal story

VRNW Member Responds to Seattle Times Article about WA’s Death with Dignity/MAID Law

Recently, retired newspaper photographer Peter Haley penned an editorial in the Seattle Times: “State’s ‘Death with Dignity’ law failed my wife.” In his piece, Haley wrote that Toni, his “beloved wife of 27 years,” was forced to die alone because Washington state’s medical aid-in-dying (MAID) law doesn’t cover ALS. Toni chose to die on her …

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Who We Are: Nancy Simmers

RN, Death Doula, and Co-Founder & Coordinator of VSED Resources Northwest Years ago, as a returning Peace Corps Volunteer, I applied to nursing school envisioning my life calling as a midwife. A self-proclaimed feminist, I was sure that women’s roles would drastically change during my lifetime, but that pregnancy and childbearing and reproductive choices would …

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Who We Are: Andrea Fenwick

Death Doula, Social Worker, and Hospice Volunteer My desire to support people in end-of-life choices and to work in this field originates from the experience of my mother’s death to ovarian cancer when I was 15 and she was just 39. This experience was shrouded in isolation with no one speaking about the “elephant in …

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Poem by Kate Vredvoogd

The following poem was written by Kate Vredvoogd while being present with and sitting at the bedside of her beloved father, Bruce Vredvoogd, during his 11 day VSED process. Kate is a writer, photographer and teacher of the English language. Her website is www.wanderlustwords.com. My dad is the trickster, the quiet careful listenerwho hears the …

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