Filmmaker's Parents Choose Medical Aid in Dying, End Their Lives in Emotional Docuseries: Editing 'Was Hell' (Exclusive)

• Serene Meshel-Dillman lost both of her sick parents after they chose medical aid in dying
• She documented their decisions and their deaths in her new documentary, Take me out first
• The filmmaker, 61, hopes their stories and others will lead to medical aid in dying becoming law in every state

Within five years, filmmaker Serena Meshel-Dillman witnessed both of her parents end their lives in the comfort of their own home.

“I think once someone makes that decision, I don’t think you can talk them out of it,” the 61-year-old tells PEOPLE. “So we can have our opinions and we can say what we feel, but it doesn’t really have any bearing on anyone else’s decision or my parents’ decision after they’ve already made up their minds.”

Speaking about his new documentary, Take me out first, Meshel-Dillman — born in New York — talks about her parents, Miriam and Robert, choosing their right to medical assistance in dying (MAID). It differs from euthanasia because the patients themselves administer the prescribed drugs to end their lives, not the doctor.

In June 2017, Miriam was diagnosed with stage four spindle cell sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, after several months of back pain. She was told that her illness was terminal and she only had a few months to live.

“She called me from the car on the way back from the doctor and said, ‘I feel like I’m living in an alternate universe because I was just diagnosed with death after three months,'” Meshel-Dillman recalls.

Miriam — who spent decades working as a social worker for terminally ill cancer patients and witnessed her daughter-in-law’s “terrible” six-year battle with cancer before her death — knew immediately after receiving her diagnosis that she wanted to choose a LISTENER.

“She just didn’t want to go through it and she didn’t want us to go through it,” Meshel-Dillman says of her mother’s decision. “It was nothing smart. She said, ‘This is what I do.’ She didn’t even ask about it, she just said, ‘I’m doing it.'”

Serene Meshel-Dillman with her mother.

Courtesy of Serena Meshel-Dillman

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Miriam had that option available under the End-of-Life Options Act, which went into effect in California on June 9, 2016. The law allows terminally ill patients to end their lives with lethal medication under the supervision of their medical team.

In addition to California, medical aid in dying laws have been approved in Oregon, Washington, Montana, Vermont, Colorado, Washington DC, Hawaii, New Jersey, Maine and New Mexico.

For Meshel-Dillman, she “felt it was the right thing” for her mother, to leave the world without suffering or being in the hospital for chemotherapy that would only extend her life by a few months.

“I felt like I had to hold her hand and be there,” she says. “I felt good.”

“I think it brought us closer in the end. It really helped us to reconcile, to express our love for each other, to express some kind of regret that we didn’t do it earlier. And that put me and her in a very good place,” she explains. “We both told each other we loved each other, kissed and hugged. It was very emotional and certainly wouldn’t have happened then if she wasn’t supposed to die. So it kind of forced the issue, but in a good way.”

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Serene Meshel-Dillman with her father.

Courtesy of Serena Meshel-Dillman

However, Miriam’s husband and Meshel-Dillman’s father, Robert, felt anger and hurt because he had no say or was part of the decision to watch his wife die.

“I’m not sure I could be strong enough to do that,” Robert said in the film, admitting that he himself is opposed to MAID. But through tears he accepted and supported her decision.

Miriam died on August 9, 2017 at her home in Marin County, California at the age of 78.

Ultimately, Robert did not take Miriam’s death well.

“My dad was so lost. He would isolate himself, never go out, and basically broke any close friendships he had. Something died in it too, and we couldn’t find it again,” says Meshel-Dillman. “He felt unmoored, he felt at sea. He just didn’t know what to do. He had no control and was exposed.”

“I don’t think he just had anyone to talk to about it,” she continues. “And I think he would have been better off if they had provided him with a social worker or somebody to talk to him about the decision and how to deal with it or how to help or how to navigate those waters.”

After five years of grieving, Robert’s health began to deteriorate and like Miriam, he too was diagnosed with cancer, large b cell lymphoma, in early 2022.

“In less than a week, he wanted out, too,” says Meshel-Dillman.

Inside a terminally ill man’s decision to die and his emotional parties with friends and family

Serene Meshel-Dillman with her father.

Courtesy of Serena Meshel-Dillman

Despite doctors saying that his cancer could be treated with chemotherapy, Robert changed his attitude and opted for medical assistance in dying.

“I don’t even think it was a diagnosis,” admits Meshel-Dillman. “I think his diagnosis was an excuse. “Oh, this is what I can use to get out of here now.” He just stopped living and I think he did it himself.”

“He could have helped himself and lived longer, I believe,” she says. “I really feel mentally, [my mom’s death] is what killed him. I think the brain probably has as much to do with the body in terms of this type of death.”

So on March 30, 2022, Meshel-Dillman sat with her father as he decided to die.

Meshel-Dillman recorded the last moments of her parents’ lives — from their decision to die to their last breath. She says she was “just trying to help” them get out on their own terms and terms.

But as a director, Meshel-Dillman says editing the episode “was hell.”

“It was really hard. I can’t watch an episode about my dad without crying and sobbing for a good few hours,” she shares. “Even now when I talk about it, it’s upsetting. I never cried with my mom. My dad, he just sneaks up on me and grabs my neck and shakes me and then lets me go.”

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Miriam and Robert are just two of several terminally ill people Meshel-Dillman has profiled Take me out first.

The six-part documentaries — made in partnership with the nonprofit advocacy organization Compassion & Choices — feature those who have also sought medical assistance in dying, their friends and families, and medical professionals advocating for MAID laws across the country.

Meshel-Dillman hopes that exposing the series will bring MAID into law in every state.

“It’s so important that people have this option in many more states,” she tells PEOPLE. “It’s now in the legislature or being tabled in 19 other states across the country.”

“In states where it wasn’t legal, the anguish of family struggles and the grief and literally the pain and suffering that it puts on people who don’t have access … I have to show [that] so that people understand how much people have to go through to have this choice, which should be a human right,” she adds.

Take me out first now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

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Source: HIS Education