-Yeah, here are some pictures.
Oh, this is a good one. -Yeah.
Remember those days, Ron? -I sure do.
-We were 17 and complete opposites.
-That was in 1956 and Sandy
and I were both involved in a school show.
-He was quiet, a little reserved, very, very bright.
I was curious about him.
-Sandy was just a wonderful, warm, engaging personality.
She was somebody I admired right from the beginning.
Four years after I met Sandy, we got married, age 21.
Doin' the deed.
That's the day that we got married.
Well, when I was in the Air Cadets,
I won a flying scholarship.
Here I am being awarded my flying scholarship at age 16.
-And the scholarship was flying lessons,
so he had his pilot's license before.
He had to wait to get his driver's license.
Oh, there are your wings from Air Cadets.
-My best buddies. I'm takin' 'em flying.
-Spring 1957.
-As I was aging,
there were things that I found myself unable to do.
I can't do arithmetic anymore.
My handwriting has disappeared.
Yes, I am much more easily confused now than I used to be.
I was diagnosed with what they call minor cognitive impairment.
It's not really a problem/
That's the precursor, the beginning,
for maybe one of 13 different kinds of dementia.
Alzheimer's is the most likely one.
I was test flying an airplane in 1973.
I crashed in a ditch.
I had a skull injury and my eye was removed.
My brain damage.
It's likely that brain damage in '73 ends up,
now, in my older years, as the cause for dementia.
By having a medical assistance death, I can avoid.
It isn't my suffering, so much,
'cause my mind won't really experience anything.
It just doesn't exist anymore.
But people who care about me.
My wife, other people who know me.
For somebody like Sandy to have to care for me
in that end-of-life stage,
I just can't tolerate that, so, that's why I want MAID.
I wanna be able to die peacefully,
with some sense of dignity.
-He's going through what might, hopefully, be about 10 years
before he slips down to the end-of-life stage.
I know what is in my future, our future, but, right now,
I can't say that it's changed our lives that much,
except make us more determined
to live life to the fullest right now.
-You haven't been approved for MAID
[medical assistance in dying], right?
-Not officially. -Okay.
-No. I've got a request all made out.
It's ready.
-Have you applied?
-Oh, yeah, but a doctor can't do it.
-Right.
-Not under the present circumstances.
But, to me, MAID is a security blanket.
It's a beacon of hope.
If I know I got a way out
of this problem, it gives me something to.
-When the time comes. When the time comes.
He's got a lot of living to do before then.
-So I like that concept: beacon of hope.
But do I wanna die next week, next month, or next year,
or even three years from now?
No.
I wanna die when I get to that end stage.
That could be another eight, nine, 10 years from now.
But I want approval that they'll do that when that time comes.
Now, if I change my mind, for whatever reason,
I can do that, while I'm still cogent and capable, right?
I don't need to have any late-stage request.
Now, when you get to the end-of-life stage,
you can have a miserable time.
I could be aggressive. I could be abusive.
I see some strange person, I might be paranoid.
I might strike out. I might holler.
So you can't ask me, at that point.
I don't wanna live like that. Thank you very much.
That's alright. I'm not living.
I don't wanna exist like that.
So, right now, it boils down I got four ups every day.
One, I wake up.
Two, the sun's up.
Three, I get up.
And then, I ask Sandy, "What's up"?
And, as Sandy says, what we look at for each day is
"What are we gonna do for fun"?
And, if we can, and it usually works out together,
to be the same thing,
"What can we do to help somebody"?
-He's a very considerate, kind person.
It's very easy to fall in love
and to enjoy all of these years of life together.
-I wanna be remembered as a person who cared about living
and helped other people care about themselves
and the life that they could live.