In the Netherlands, « euthanasia has become a normal death »-Liberation

Jan Grijpma organized his death as he had planned his whole life. Travel lover, project manager in large firms that have become a sculptor, very strict and ordered, he never separated from his agenda. The last page of this rectangular notebook, surrounded by red leather, is that of April 24, 2023. Monday morning: « Visit of the Doctor … euthanasia. » And then the following days, a simple repeated word: « dead », As if to remind his memory nibbled by Alzheimer that he would not be available these days. In accordance with his will, repeated every three years in writing since 2015. « I still appreciate a few things in my life, but I had to give up a lot, Can we read in the last document, signed a few weeks before his death. I no longer want to regress (…) and become completely dependent on a daily basis. That’s enough. « 

As the law of the Netherlands has allowed since 2002, Jan Grijpma has chosen to die, at 90 years old. In her house in Waalre, in the south of the country, her eldest daughter Maria Grijpma spread out on the table of life fragments. There is his precious agenda; This apple cake he bought every week; Hot coffee served in his white cup; A photo with her daughter, wind hair and laughing faces, surrounded by the sea. “I would have liked to keep it with me. But I did not want this man, so exceptional, becoming what he feared ”, said Maria Grijpma.

Its limits had evolved over the years: