Loving God, time and eternity, all life and all death, are in your hands. Be very close to me now as I decide the time and the place of my own death.
You know so well the pain and helplessness that I suffer; you know that joy and laughter have gone out of my time with family and friends; you know that I want this existence over and done with. Good living time is finished and done for me; you know that too.
I do not want to linger in pain, waiting for death to come. I do not want my family and loved ones to watch me suffer to the bitter end. I do not want them to be haunted by memories of a slow, painful death. Daily my dignity is being eroded. I am ready to go through that final door.
I give thanks that I have still the ability to choose, but I realize this window of lucid opportunity may very soon be closed.
Give me the courage to state clearly what I want to happen so I can die when I choose, so I can go peacefully with my loved ones around me, and my last wishes, respected and followed.
Embrace with your love, God, loved ones…and be so close to them, so very close, as they quietly follow me to the place beyond which they cannot go.
Be with loved ones…in the days and weeks that follow my death, that they will seek and find the grief-help they need, and reassurance in their decision to go with me to the place of a final farewell.
I pray in the name of Jesus the Christ, who suffered greatly, died on the cross, but gloriously overcame death. Amen.
—By David Sparks, United Church of Canada minister, and Sheila Noyes, former co-president of Dying with Dignity Canada