A year ago, when a doctor finally diagnosed the brain disease that had been making it harder for her to walk without falling, Rona Zelniker told her son and daughter that she was going to end her life while she still could, before complete disability set in.
Her children were grateful for the way she prepared them, and for the time they had together at the end. "I must have cried 150 times in the last year," said Keith Zelniker, 32, her son. He scheduled off the week she was planning to die, writing on his work calendar, "bereavement time."
Zelniker felt anxiety about how she would end her life. She didn't want to swallow pills, only to wake up even worse off, with brain damage. A gun was out of the question.
Last fall, she contacted an organization she had found on the Internet - the Final Exit Network - which she described in a letter as "the answer to my prayers."
After reviewing her records and interviewing her, members of the network instructed her how to end her life quickly and painlessly, and an "exit guide" - a retired guidance counselor from Wynnewood - would come hold her hand.
Zelniker was enraged, but undeterred, in February when Georgia authorities charged four members of the Final Exit Network with assisted suicide, a felony. The Final Exit Network halted all trips to the bedside, fearful of more police sting operations.
"We were told all exits were off," said Leonora Vizer, 77, the Wynnewood guide, who had to stay home.
So on March 18, Rona Zelniker, one month shy of 61, with a progressive and incurable brain disease called Sporadic OPCA, ended her life alone, in the spare bedroom of her condominium, adjacent to the golf course, in an active-adult community in Monroe Township, Middlesex County, just off Exit 8 of the New Jersey Turnpike.
Zelniker pulled a clear plastic hood over her head, fastened the bottom around her neck with Velcro, opened two helium canisters with tubes leading into the hood, and soon enough was unconscious, and then dead, in her black recliner.
She was wearing a $6 golden necklace Keith had given her when he was 13. Inscribed on the heart was, "I love you, Mom. 1990."
By her side Zelniker left letters for police, friends and family.
"I hope that you all understand my need to die with dignity at the time and place of my choosing," she wrote. "It has not been easy for me these past months. My balance has become so bad and my legs so weak that I am in constant fear of falling and hurting myself . . . I am dropping almost everything. It is getting harder to speak and I am choking more frequently. My window of opportunity is narrowing rapidly and if I wait much longer, I will be at a nursing home's mercy. I could never live like that. I would not have done this if I had time left. Please know that I really don't want to leave my wonderful life, family and friends. I waited until the last possible moment."
She also wrote, because of the Georgia arrests, "I have to do this alone. Nobody should have to go through this unaccompanied, for fear of their friends and loved ones being arrested. I truly hope that one day, the laws will be changed and people like me will be able to die with dignity, with friends and loved ones by their side."
John Celmer, who ended his life last summer in Georgia, and whose death prompted the arrests of Final Exit Network members, was not terminally ill. He was disfigured from surgeries, skin grafts and cancer treatments for his jaw and would not leave the house.
"We're talking about a person who was cured of cancer," said John Bankhead, spokesman for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. "Without the involvement of the Final Exit Network, he would likely still be here. The problem is they offer this as a viable alternative to people who are not terminally ill."
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