Through his final days in Basel of long goodbyes, David Goodall will be remembered for his incredible patience. He was patient waiting for the family to show up to take him out to dinner on his final night. He was patient on his final day as the clinic equipment was reconfigured at the last moment. He never once lost his temper. He never once told the younger people in the room to get on with it. He was serene in the knowledge that he would soon be dead. There was clearly no place that he would rather have been.
The world’s press was intensely interested in David due to his extreme advanced old age. A press conference seemed the only way to assuage the interest. David Goodall’s decision to seek an assisted suicide touched a nerve and proved at point: you don’t need to be seriously ill or suffering to want to die. Rather, David was a case study in the phenomenon known as ‘tired of life’ or ‘completed life’ (discussed earlier in the book).
David Goodall’s press conference on 9 May 2018, Basel
