A Father Leaves Behind a Legacy of Violent Dreams
For Jane Powers, 25, of San Francisco, the legacy of her father's death was nightmares. For months she would wake up screaming. "There were always people getting shot in my dreams," she says. "And blood spattered on the walls." The dreams began a few weeks after Nov. 13, 1987, the day her father, a retired postal supervisor, turned a gun on himself. "He blew his head off," says Jane. David Powers, 58, who had bladder cancer and emphysema, left no note. "I was full of rage at him for, in effect, leaving me orphaned," says Jane, one of three children. "I never got to say goodbye."
In the weeks that followed, Jane admits, she "flipped out." She drank heavily and did drugs. She took up with an ex-boyfriend simply because "I wanted a living thing next to me." It was a year before she could turn off the lights when she went to sleep. After a friend put her in touch with a suicide-prevention center, she entered group therapy for suicide survivors. Now off drugs and a volunteer at the center, she intends to go into grief therapy. "I'd like to offer an alternative to the [Kevorkian] suicide machine," she says. "I think if my dad had any idea of the suffering he would cause, he would not have done it. He thought he was a burden to us.
"Maybe," she concludes, "he needed someone to say, 'I need you.' "
At the End of a Lovely Married Life, a Double 'Gift' of Death
Justin and Betty Bruce Bowersock were both 82 when, on the evening of Saturday, April 21, he put on his best pajamas, she her nicest peignoir, and, lying side by side as they had through six decades of marriage, they each downed a suicide cocktail of drugs. The next day they were found in their Middleburg, Va., home by their twins, Frances and Carol, 47. "They died with dignity," says Carol. "I cried for about 20 seconds and said, 'I'm sorry, I'll miss them, but I'm not sad.' "
The Bowersocks had lived a fulfilling life by anyone's standards. He had been a successful banker, she an avid tennis player, opera buff and yoga enthusiast. They were not terminally ill—he had suffered a few strokes and was partially bedridden, she had emphysema and her sight was failing. They were simply suffering from old age. Justin could no longer play the piano. His memory and balance were impaired. Betty Bruce could no longer play tennis. Her mother had spent her last years in a nursing home, and she was determined not to follow suit. "Mother used to say, 'I don't ever want to go through that or have my children go through that, to watch a very vital woman end up staring into space,' " recalls Frances. "Daddy's fear was that he would wind up in the hospital. They wanted to end it while they were in good enough shape to do it themselves."
The Bowersocks, members of the Hemlock Society, shared their feelings with their daughters and were meticulous in their planning. They acquired enough Seconal and Darvocet to do the job. They left detailed instructions for the twins: Betty even wrote down the stain formula to be used on the house and where to get the rubber feet for the porch furniture. However, they did not bid farewell. "They didn't want a last supper," says Carol. Both daughters approved of the suicide. "But when push comes to shove," says Frances, "I don't know if I would have the courage. It takes a lot."
"They were happy people," adds Carol. "They had a lust for living. They considered suicide a gift to us and themselves."
Divided About a Cop's Suicide, His Survivors Unite in Grief
That he was needed should have been obvious to Richard DiNicolo. The 56-year-old Chicago cop, who was separated, was always what his brother Mike calls "the glue in our family." At home and in the precinct, he always provided a shoulder to cry on, a self-mocking quip to make people laugh. A 32-year police veteran, he shot only one person—himself. In April he put his service revolver to his head and pulled the trigger. When he was found, his daughter Connie, 33, was so shocked she put on his bloody pajama top, raced to an uncle's and burst in screaming, "This is my father's blood!"
DiNicolo seemed an unlikely candidate for suicide until he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986. MS, an incurable disease, attacks the nervous system and may render its victims unable to control even the simplest bodily functions. At first, DiNicolo just kept on working. If he had to give a ticket—something he hated—he'd tell the motorist he was testing his honesty, hand over his ticket book and ask the driver to fill it out himself. The fact was, the jovial cop could no longer see well enough to write out a ticket. Then, as his vision worsened and his muscles weakened, he grew depressed, and in the end he withdrew completely from friends. "He turned into a hermit," says his sister Penny, tears streaming down.
His family is divided on his suicide. Mike says, "I'm so mad, I walk around the house saying, 'Damn you, Rich, damn you.' " Yet his niece Louise says, "I understand why he did what he did. I used to work in a nursing home, so I know what MS does. I couldn't stand the thought of him ending up in a place like that, unable to wipe his butt. I think of how much courage it took to do what he did," she adds, half sobbing, half chuckling, "and I always thought he was such a wimp."
Husband and Son Struggle With a Mother's Alzheimer's
Shirley Gold of Southfield, Mich., is alive—at least biologically. She's 64 and has Alzheimer's. She can speak only one or two words at a time. "It sounds awful," says her son, Bill, 34. "But in a way she's like a dog that will respond to commands if trained. There is absolutely no intellectual understanding." For the past eight years, Bill and his father, Jack, 65, have devoted nearly all their energy to the care of Shirley, and it is clear from the tender way they deal with her that they love her deeply. "We've watched her die a little bit each day, but we've learned life is a precious thing," says her husband of 42 years. Yet the listless woman who does little more than stare was once a vivacious actress on radio and on TV commercials.
Because Janet Adkins shared his mother's affliction, Bill found himself drawn to the site where she died: His office is nearby. "I don't know why I went," he says. "It was just on my mind. The suicide doesn't make any sense. I mean someone with Alzheimer's could go on another 10-15 years and still enjoy food, enjoy sitting in the sun and being with her family.... Such a waste."
The conversation turns to his mother, who's staring vacantly into the corner.
"She enjoys life," insists Bill.
"We think she does anyway," says Jack.
"No...I'm sure of it," says Bill.
Years Later, a Survivor Still Says, 'I Should Have Died'
One of the most celebrated and widely debated cases about the right to die is that of Dax Cowart, 42, and it began in a horrifyingly commonplace way. On the clear, sunny afternoon of July 25, 1973, out in the Texas countryside, Cowart and his father, Ray, found their car wouldn't start. Ray opened the hood. Dax turned the starter. And their world exploded in sheets of flame. The Cowarts had parked near a leaking propane gas line, and the blast was heard for miles around. "It rocked me right over in the seat; the windows imploded," recalls Dax, who had flown jet transports to Vietnam. "I instantly reached for the door handle and ran out. I was surrounded by a wall of fire and I was burning." When a farmer came to his aid, "I asked him for a gun. He asked why, and I said, "Can't you see I'm a dead man?' " The farmer was the first of a great many people who refused to let Dax Cowart die. The next were the ambulance attendants who refused his screamed requests to stop treatment. "I was in tremendous pain," he remembers. "At least they picked me up by my boots and belt, so they wouldn't have to touch my skin."
Ray Cowart died in the ambulance. Dax was found to have third-degree burns over 65 percent of his body, including his eyes. His ordeal had just begun.
To reduce the risk of infection, Dax had to endure debridement, or the scraping away of his seared flesh. "Even with massive amounts of morphine, the pain was ungodly," he says. He again asked to die, and then he made what would seem to him a tragic mistake: He signed a power of attorney to let his mother, a Christian fundamentalist, make decisions for him, and she refused to let her son die because "she felt I hadn't gotten close enough to God, and she was saving me from the fires of Hell." Instead, Cowart endured a series of skin grafts, amputations and the removal of one eye. An avid sky diver and rodeo rider, he found himself crazed with pain in hospital beds he could not escape. "I couldn't sleep. I would just lie there. I was blind in both eyes. My hearing was damaged. I had no fingers. I couldn't walk more than a few steps. Imagine someone like me, who had always prided himself on independence, being in that position."
When Cowart emerged from the hospital after 14 months, he had no hands to speak of, one glass eye and little nubs of flesh for ears. His badly scarred skin had stretched so tight he had trouble moving about. But since he was clearly not going to die, he decided he would have to learn to live.
Dax enrolled in law school and graduated in 1986 from Texas Tech. He began to lecture at law and medical schools on the plight of those who wish to die. He became the subject of two books, dozens of newspaper and magazine articles and two videos. He met Lois "Randy" Randall, a nurse of 46, as a result of his video Please Let Me Die. She called him up and proposed they meet. Married in 1988, they live in a big stucco house near the Henderson Country Club. He has his own law practice, a generous settlement from the oil and gas company, and a devoted wife. It seems a happy ending.
Yet Dax Cowart still believes he should have been allowed to die years ago. "Most people don't know what it's like to lose their freedom, to be totally out of control of their lives," he says, bitterly. "No human being has the right to put another through that kind of agony. The real issue is that I be the one to decide." And if he could go back in time, back to 1973, and bring Dr. Kevorkian's suicide machine with him, he would not hesitate about using it. "I'd do it in a New York minute," the survivor says.
—Jack Friedman, with bureau reports
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