Sisters Natalie and Jacqui Gray seek peace in passing
In a bid to fulfil their Mum’s dying wish, sisters Jacqui and Natalie Gray became the face and heart of a campaign supporting Tasmania’s Voluntary Assisted Dying legislation. Read the story of their journey from their Mum’s bedside to the historic vote in parliament >>
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HER dying wish was that no one else would have to die the way she did.
“There is a difference between suicide and VAD (Voluntary Assisted Dying). I do not want to die, I am dying,” wrote Diane Gray in her final journal entry just days before passing away with her daughters Jacqui and Natalie by her side.
The Gray sisters became the face and heart of a campaign supporting Voluntary Assisted Dying legislation in Tasmania.
The laws had failed in Tasmanian Parliament three times previously, most recently in 2017.
But last month Tasmania became the third state to legalise VAD behind Victoria and Western Australia.
Voluntary assisted dying to become law in Tasmania
Momentous step for voluntary assisted dying laws in Tasmania
The passage of the legislation was due in no small part to the emotive and tireless campaign by Your Choice Tasmania, founded and run by the sisters who lost their mother Diane to stomach cancer in 2019.
Their campaign began as a way to honour their mother and fulfil her dying wish but it quickly became much, much more than that.
They became a voice for all Tasmanians who have suffered painful prolonged deaths and the family members who sat by and agonisingly watched them fade away.
Their primary motivation was Diane’s last journal entry, which read: “Sit with me during the last few days of my life, look me in the eyes, deny me of ending my suffering while my withered away body convulses in pain … there is nothing humane about this ending.
“I want to slip away under my terms and allow my children to have a final goodbye, not to be tortured for weeks of watching me suffer and lose every ounce of dignity I have left. After 11 months of hell and torture, surely I deserve at least this?!”
At the young age of 57, Diane was diagnosed with terminal gastric cancer and passed away in September 2019 after almost a year battling the disease.
Growing up, Jacqui, 37, and Natalie, 35, moved house a lot.
Their dad Adrian had a real estate company and would renovate houses so over the years they lived in nine different homes around the Lenah Valley and lower Sandy Bay areas.
The girls attended Lenah Valley Primary School and Ogilvie High School where their Mum worked in the office.
The sisters fondly remember family holidays to Doo Town on the Tasman Peninsula.
“We’d hire a shack there for two weeks, take our friends down for the first week and the second week would just be family time.”
The couple separated 13 years before Diane’s death after 26 years of marriage.
Diane later worked in her new partner Greg’s milk distribution business.
Previously she had worked at the Land Titles office and was secretary to the Attorney-General.
She went to Chigwell primary school and was later the librarian at the school.
She was also the rates manager at the Hobart City Council, the first female to hold the role in Tasmania.
Jacqui said that after working hard all her life Diane was ready to retire.
“Mum retired and two days later had a stomach perforation,” said Natalie.
“She retired thinking she was going to spend the next few years enjoying family and travelling and whatever else.
“She never got to enjoy retirement, she was dead within months of retiring.”
Jacqui, who now works in real estate, laments that her mother never got to embrace her golden years.
“That was one of the worst things – she had worked so hard all her life. Even growing up she’d finish school and then go and work in her parent’s fish and chip shop.
“She had such a good work ethic instilled in her form a young age.
“So for her to work her butt off her entire life then retire and for that to happen., just wasn’t fair.
“In letters mum wrote us in her last week she said ‘learn from my mistake, don’t live to work, work to live. Make sure you realise your priorities and don’t bury yourself in work like I did for so long’.”
Natalie, a self-employed book keeper, has vowed to live by that advice.
“We’ve learnt a lot from her. As well as things we might not do. Like mum working herself into the ground. Knowing what we should put first because time is precious and you need to appreciate it.”
As well as learning from their mother’s experience both girls have her personality traits.
“She was a perfectionist and I see that in myself a lot,” Jacqui said.
“Even things that don’t matter in the scheme of things. Like my children’s bedrooms have to be perfect before I go to work each day.”
“I think I got mum’s sense of humour, she liked to fool around,” said Natalie.
“I see different traits of Mum in the kids as well.”
The sister, who each have two children, say their mum was their best friend and taught them how to parent.
“She was very strict growing up but she was also extremely fun,” said Natalie.
“She was crafty, she was always creating things for us to do and helping us learn.
“She’d tell us stories and put so much emphasis into it, you’d be thinking ‘what’s next’. She’d put on different voices.
“She had high hopes and aspirations for us but she was always supportive of our endeavours. She always encouraged us and she was our best friend from the beginning.”
Jacqui said they often had to share their mum.
“She was a mum for a lot of our friends. Our house was where people came to when they had problems and so many called her their second mum.”
Natalie said Diane was an incredible grandmother but it caused her much grief that she never got to meet her youngest grandchild, Tilly Diane, born in November last year.
“She was an amazing nanny. You’d send them to her and they’d be spoilt rotten. Her grandchildren were the world to her.
“Grandmothers are the ones that get to dote on them and cherish them and we were robbed of that.
“We were so close. Mum would stay at my house every Thursday night. We’d watch movies and play games and drink a bottle of wine.
“She’s left a big hole.”
Jacqui said she recalls early conversations with her mother about VAD.
“I remember being much younger and hearing the word euthanasia and asking what it was. She explained that it was something that people with a terminal illness should be able to access.
“One night the story of Kerry Robertson was on the news, the first lady to access VAD in Victoria.
“Her two daughters described their mum’s death as beautiful as it was everything she wanted. She got to have the music playing, candles burning and her loved ones by her side.
“I turned to mum and she was crying and she said ‘this is what I want and I can’t purely because of my postcode’.
“From there we talked about it more and her desire to make it a legal option in Tasmania.
“As time progressed her pain became more unmanageable. We’d tried everything from natural therapies, CBD oil to keto diets to a $27,000 hyperbaric chamber to keep her symptoms under control.
“As her symptoms got worse, so too did her anxiety, knowing that as her cancer progressed, her pain would increase.
“She said she just wanted to have control over how she went when it was her time.
“She said she wanted to take her own life.
“It was a shock to hear that, that our mum wanted to take things into her own hands, and possibly die alone and afraid.”
Diane had described to the girls how she planned to end her life but ultimately decided against going through with it as she knew would have to do it alone.
She feared if her daughters were present they would be incriminated and may face criminal charge.
“It was horrific to even contemplate how it might play out.”
Jacqui said she remembers like it was yesterday when things started to go downhill.
Following an intense course of radiation, Diane’s stomach perforated and her condition quickly deteriorated.
“The pain she was in that first day of the stomach perforation was so frightening, I’ve never been so scared in all my life.
“It was the beginning of the end. I honestly thought she was going to die on the spot.”
Natalie also remembers it all too vividly.
“No one could control the pain, she was saying it was 11 out of 10. She birthed both of us naturally with no drugs and I was breach so she has a good pain tolerance but they couldn’t manage it.
“She went into surgery and they did a graft to put a patch over the hole of the perforation. The problem was the tissue they used there was no guarantee it didn’t include cancerous cells and if that’s the case the risk of a secondary perforation was high and there’s no chance of operating again. They said they will just keep her comfortable until she dies.”
Jacqui is visibly upset remembering that time.
“From that moment her life was a ticking time bomb. Every little spasm, every movement.
“She lost control of her life and the fear took over.
“If VAD was available that probably would have been the point she would have gone.
“There was no joy left in her life. She was sick all the time, she couldn’t eat, she was losing weight, she was nauseous, she was exhausted and so frail.
“A devastating thing to witness, for someone who used to be so full of life.
“We played netball together, she was on our team and she used to get best player every week.”
Natalie laughed at the memory.
“She was playing as centre and she was 52 years old and running rings around all of us. She was called the energiser bunny because she had so much go.
“To see her dwindle away to nothing.
“To see her sadness. She said ‘this is not my life anymore and it’s not how I want to be remembered’.
“That is how I remember her now, that is what’s drilled into our heads.
The sisters were by their mother’s side 24 hours a day for the last nine days of her life.
“She said that when she went she wanted to be lying in her own bed in her own home in the arms of her loved ones.
“We obviously couldn’t get her home but in the hospital they pulled another bed in next to her so we were all in the bed listening to music when she passed away. It was the middle of the night but we were with her which was so important.”
Instead of the big wedding they had planned Jacqui and Daniel had an intimate ceremony at the Islington Hotel just days before Diane died with only a handful of guests.
Most importantly Diane was there to walk her down the aisle.
“We rescheduled our wedding three times. When she started to get sicker we moved it forward. Then we moved it forward again when we got the news she only had days possibly weeks left.
“My husband organised a wedding in 24 hours. We had the wedding six days before she died.
“I always said ‘if you can’t be there then I’m not going to get married’.
“I did tell her to not to feel pressured to get out of the hospital and put on a brave face to be at my wedding.
“But she said ‘it’s important to me, it’s one of the items on my bucket list that I can tick off’.”
Natalie tells her sister it was more than that.
“Mum said she wanted you to experience the love and security that marriage can bring.
“We went straight from the wedding back to the hospital.
“From that point on was when she stopped all food and fluids.”
Diane had chosen starvation and dehydration to speed up the dying process.
Jacqui is mum to Savannah, 7, and Spencer, 5, and works as a book keeper.
“I had 11 clients at the beginning of last year but I got rid of the majority of them as we were planning to do a trip around Australia.
“I still have four companies. But it was a blessing in disguise because on top of Mum I was trying to co-ordinate the VAD campaign.
“I think it would have been a nightmare for my headspace trying to work out where everyone’s finances where at and what had been paid as well.
“I don’t really know where to from here, I don’t really want to do bookkeeping anymore, my heart’s not in it.”
With her campaign success and her public profile Jacqui was approached to run for parliament, an offer she declined.
“I think running a campaign out of passion and love is a lot different from running a political campaign as a career path and then having a lifetime of public scrutiny.
“I’d just like to leave it on the note I’ve ended on.”
She said she is considering a career as a care navigator, a role which would assist people who are trying to access VAD.
Natalie is a single mum to Tilly, five months, and Harvey, 4, and also juggles a successful career.
She has followed in her father’s real estate footprints and is co-owner of PRD Hobart.
“We’re at rival agencies, he thinks he’s too old to move now.
“I’ve been with PRD 11 years and I bought in five years ago with three other directors.
“I’m just returning from mat-leave so Tilly comes in with me on Wednesdays to lift everyone’s spirits.
“I’ve been in real estate since I was 17.”
Jacqui supported Natalie at the birth of Tilly.
“I had complications during the pregnancy as well so I had a couple of procedures. I had an incarcerated uterus, the uterus was trapped in my pelvis, so they had to free it out. It worked within the first five minutes so we thought ‘mum’s definitely watching over us’.
“When I had the caesarean we took mum’s ashes in and they were in hospital room with a photo of mum so she was still there with us.”
The sisters said the shared experience of witnessing their mother’s suffering and death was something they wouldn’t want to go through alone.
“That’s part of the reason I wanted to have Tilly, so that if Harvey ever had to go through something like we’ve been through he wouldn’t be alone. It wasn’t easy but it was far easier having Jacqui by my side as my support.”
The sisters said they never expected to be so central to the debate on VAD to the point of orchestrating a well-run, visible, statewide campaign.
Hundreds of Your Choice Tas signs were placed on everything from giant billboards to small front yard signs and 120,000 leaflets were distributed around Tasmania.
It all started with a phone call to Independent Mersey MLC Mike Gaffney who tabled the End of Life Choices Bill.
“The draft bill was being prepared and we got in touch with Mike because we wanted to share mum’s final journal entry.
“We never intended to create a campaign. We wanted to share our story and thought that would be it.
“It just kind of snowballed.
“Mike got us to read mum’s journal entry and record it and he used that at all the public forums he was holding for VAD.”
They started a petition, which ended up with the largest number of signatures for any petition to parliament in Tasmania’s history.
“Watching it we were like, oh my god 300 people have signed. Our goal was to get to 1000 and in the end it went to over 13,000.
“The petition was presented to parliament and that was the first time we’d ever stepped foot in parliament house.
“It was really emotional and moving for us.
“From there we pledged to sit through the whole debate. Though at that time we thought it might go for two months, not 14 months.”
Jacqui said they started off sell-funding the campaign and were thrown in at the deep end.
“We had no political background, no marketing experience, we had no idea about any of it.
“Which was good in a way because we didn’t want it to be a political debate, it’s a human rights issue.”
Both girls admit the campaign had its challenges – spending time away from their kids, organising babysitters and the toll it was taking on their mental health.
But their mother’s dying wish was always there in the back of their minds keeping them motivated.
Natalie said the community support was overwhelming.
“We’ve had so many share their stories. We haven’t had time to even grieve so it’s been taxing on our own mental health.”
Jacqui said those stories also motivated them.
“Just to hear how many people have been affected by it is alarming. It’s upsetting to know there’s been so much pain and trauma in other people’s lives as well.
“Some of the stories and the extreme circumstances people have gone to, to take their own life or the age people have died and left behind young children. That really hits home to us.
“We’re so grateful to have had such a wonderful mum who was a really active part of our life and loved us endlessly.
“But I also feel short-changed. She misses being a grandma and seeing the kids grow up.”
Natalie was pregnant for much of the debate, which would often see them sitting in parliament late into the night. When Tilly was born she brought her along too.
While the kids didn’t understand fully what their mums were doing they knew their mums were at parliament, which is “where they make the rules for Tasmania”.
Jacqui discussed VAD with Savannah.
“I told her this would have meant that nanny could have died when she started suffering a lot. So when her pain got too much and we couldn’t look after her, nanny could of died then instead of having to wait. And she said ‘I wanted that for nanny too’.
“The kids saw her suffer. Always walking around with a sick bag, no doubt that has an impact on them.”
Natalie said while the parliamentary debate was largely respectful there were moments where that wasn’t the case.
“There were a few people who when they spoke in the lower house said some offensive things and we found it disrespectful.”
Jacqui said they felt it was their duty to push on regardless.
“With COVID restriction not many could attend so I guess we ended up as the face of people who supported VAD in Tasmania.
“Seeing us there I honestly feel that it made members of parliament feel accountable.”
They went through a rollercoaster of emotions during the VAD debate, Natalie said.
“When it first passed in the upper house and passed unanimously as well, that was probably the most elated we were as we then thought ‘wow this is actually happening’.”
“The enormity of it all won’t sink in until that first family gets to access VAD,” Jacqui said.
“That will be in June next year. That will give me the lump in the throat moment. That that person will get to have the death they want because our mum didn’t.”
Anyone seeking support and information about suicide can contact Lifeline 24 hours a day on 13 11 14.
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