Thank you, James Valentine.
Not only for your good work and gifts as a presenter. And not only for your company and corrupt instincts, although they were better.
Thank you for doing the hard thing: being upfront about death and dying. And now, we learn, about voluntary assisted dying (VAD), is still considered by many as a big taboo.
In 2024, James had already given his audience the gift of his courage, not only by announcing that he had esophageal cancer, but by bringing his doctors into the studio with him to discuss his cancer and how it can be treated.
Perhaps just as important, Jacob did not avoid expressing the many emotions that were going through him, even fear.
For thousands of people facing similar fears, or worse, James modeled how to live in the face of death.
Our discomfort with discussing death can stop what used to be a normal conversation in their songs. As if illness doesn’t take enough – our health, our energy, our future – it can sometimes destroy what we value most.
I remember a woman whose husband, from the time he was diagnosed with cancer until he died, refused to talk about it. The frozen river of grief he left behind was obvious.
Now, in a final act of generosity, James’ family have announced, at his behest, that he took final control of his life by choosing VAD.
Furthermore, they have shared with us what that choice, and the control it gave James, meant to all of them. That she was able to have a lively vigil on Valentine’s Day, surrounded by her dearest family and friends, to say goodbye. Knowing James, there would be lots of humor and good music.
That the Governor General, Sam Mostyn, was able to award James a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his services as a broadcaster and to the community last weekend. What a genius that he could live to be respected.
Above all, that he could live fully until he could no longer live. As his children said, “something that continues in this period has been of happiness and love with him”.
That James, his wife, Jo, and Roy and Ruby want this to be known means more than you can imagine.
Although VAD has been legal in Victoria for six years and NSW, now, for more than two, and although more than 7,000 Australians have taken this option, its mention is still limited for many.
Families are afraid to raise with doctors, lest they be judged for their choice or given the cold shoulder.
Some health institutions and senior care facilities, many marching under the banner of “mercy”, are openly hostile to VADs and intent on discouraging people from using them. Happy to receive taxpayers’ money, it seems, but not their values.
This silence has even been written into law, specifically the Commonwealth’s ban on the use of telephones for VADs. Reinforce the idea that VAD cannot be spoken, or if so, only in a calm voice and face to face. The AMA recognizes the harm it causes and, for two years now, has called on Attorney General Michelle Rowland to reform the law. So far, that call has fallen on deaf ears.
Clock Go Gentle Australiawe see how the silence and stigma surrounding VADs plays out in people’s lives – of an elderly woman choosing a VAD to set a suicide watch near her nursing home; of the palliative care service refusing to certify the mother’s body because she chose VAD, then denying the daughter access to bereavement assistance; of elderly, dying people who are dragged out of faith centers, away from their friends, on their last day alive, afraid that they will be stopped by the staff because they have chosen VAD.
A year ago, I joined James and clinical psychologist Dr. Kerrie Noonan in a long and frank discussion on her podcast episode called “Let’s talk about Death, Baby“.
Finally, I saw James getting emotional, and I asked him what he was feeling. Admitting that he was close to tears, he said “I’m taking a deep breath to calm myself down, so I can’t talk, I don’t have to squeeze it in… maybe I’m contemplating my own death”.
Then the three of us hugged. With her courage and openness, I wish I could hug her again today.
Andrew Denton is the founding director of Go Gentle Australia
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