My son's assisted suicide left me 'alone in my grief'

Wilma du Pisani, whose son, Anrich Burger, died by assisted suicide in November 2013, says the hardest part since his death is that nobody wants to talk about it.

“The family of Jayde Panayiotou, who was murdered in Port Elizabeth, say the positive input from so many people has helped them through their grief. The difference in my case is that nobody wants to mention it. Even your best friends keep quiet or change the subject.”

 Du Pisani says people feel “uncomfortable”, so she is alone in her grief. But she has surrounded herself with images of her son.

“I’ve got lots of reminders around the house because that is all I have left of him — many photographs, and the gifts he gave me.”

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Her son, who was 43 when he died, had worked as a doctor locally and in Canada and was specialising in trauma medicine.

In 2005, he was in a car accident in Botswana. It left him a quadriplegic who had to rely heavily on others — including his fiancée and a full-time caregiver — just to get through the day and perform the most basic of bodily functions.

He was also in agony,  so Du Pisani faced the worst two options a mother could imagine: seeing her son in constant pain and humiliation at his own helplessness, or losing him.

She poured her energy into trying to cheer him up, but the idea of an assisted suicide weighed heavily on her once he began mentioning it.

“I didn’t support it, and I didn’t not support it. He was 43 and had to decide for himself. I used to beg him not to do it because as his mother I knew how much I was going to miss him.”

She said that after the accident, he used to say: “Mom, I can’t carry on this way.”

Because he was a doctor, he knew the deterioration mapped out for his body, and how the pain would simply get worse. Suggestions were made, including surgery, but with only a 6% chance of success, he declined.

He also pumped money into stem-cell therapy research, but after it failed on another patient, he became despondent.

The “beginning of the end” was a trip to the mountains. He travelled in a  four-wheel-drive vehicle to see the snow, but on his return, he started developing ulcers. For 42 days, he could not shower and had to lie on his side.

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He said: “Mom, I think it is the end now.”

For Du Pisani, it was a stark reminder of another tragedy she had endured. When Burger was only 14 months old, his father, a pilot in the air force, was killed in an air crash.

Now her son would be leaving  both her and his brother (from another father), who was five years younger.

On Saturday, November 2 2013, he lay in a hotel bed at the Waterfront in Cape Town.

Sean Davison, founder of a right-to-die lobby group, DignitySA, was at his side, and after a lethal dose of phenobarbital, Burger died while gazing at the sea.

Du Pisani, after accepting his choice, was left with the memories of the boy and the man she had raised — a “very skilled sportsman who had loved rugby, golf, cycling and skiing”, a “keen photographer who loved the outdoors”, a “doctor who had decided from a very young age that he wanted to study medicine”, a “professional who had studied at Stellenbosch University and then opened a medical practice in Strand”, but, most importantly, “a very special and loving son who had looked after and supported his mother”.