Diane Rehm was a popular talk show host on NPR when she retired in 2016. Now in her early 80’s, she’s still working – producing a podcast, a blog, a book and a documentary about physician-assisted death. It’s part of the Virginia Film Festival .
The film, called When My Time Comes, begins with Diane Rehm at an museum – looking at how artists have portrayed the fate of every living thing.
“What is death?" she wonders. " How will my own life end? What options do I have, if any, as to what my death will be like?”
Rehm had pondered these questions since her spouse was diagnosed with a progressive neurological disease in 2005. By 2012, John Rehm could no longer stand, walk or to use his hands, but his mind was sharp when he asked Diane to get his family and physician together.
" John turned to the doctor and said, ‘I am ready to die, and I want you to help me,'" Diane recalls. "I said, ‘Sweetheart, are you sure?’ and the doctor said, ‘Here in the state of Maryland I have not the legal authority, the moral authority or any other authority by which to help you die. The only way you can do this is to stop eating, stop drinking water, stop taking medication.’”
John Rehm was outraged by that news but eventually took his doctor’s advice. He told Diane, ' I have not had any food. I have not had any medication. I have not had any water. I have begun the journey.’
"He had a smile on his face," Diane remembers. "I believe it was because he had taken his life back into his own hands.”
After his death, she wrote about the experience and met Virginia filmmaker Joe Fab.
“When I heard that she was going to end her radio show, I was figuratively hiding in the bushes – waiting for the day she was done, " he says. "Then I jumped out and said, ‘Could I please talk to you about a documentary.”
Fab had, himself, been thinking about death and dying – wanting to make sense of life’s last chapter.
“In the space of five years I lost a sister, my mother and father,” he explains.
Together, they began to explore the issue with doctors, patients, their families and advocates. The film ends with Diane Rehm sharing her wishes with a grandson who records them on his cell phone.
“Thinking about what I would like to have at the end of my life is very important, " she says . "Sharing my wishes, with my family, my friends, my physician I believe will bring comfort to us all when my time comes.”
Physician-assisted dying is now legal in Washington, D.C. and nine states. Virginia is not among them, but lawmakers are expected to consider the issue during their next session which begins in January.
To see the film, and to join a panel discussion with Diane Rehm at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, October 22, go to https://virginiafilmfestival.org/staff_members/joe-fab/
To learn more about the making of When My Time Comes, listen to Sandy Hausman's interview with Charlottesville filmmaker Joe Fab.
