The guilt of those asked to help a loved one die can work both ways

Every day she lives, she regrets that she didn’t kill him.

She had the means, the opportunity and the motive. As an intensive care nurse with a superb reputation, she would never have been suspected. She knew the chances of being caught were tiny, back when he asked her to do it. She knew he needed her to do it. But she couldn’t.

He was not a long time dying, mainly because his prostate cancer was so far advanced when he went for the test. He was busy and unworried. When he rang the clinic for the results of tests on his patients, he remembered to ask for his own results, too. As his pen started to move across the little pad in front of him, he stopped.