She refused MAiD, then lived to see a miracle

In wrapping up my series of stories, in the B.C. Catholic, marking 10 years of Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada, I ended with a story emphasizing the good that can happen when MAiD is refused and a natural death is embraced. And there's more. Here is that final story.

Pat Gray rested on her bed at Chilliwack General Hospital, her Bible at her side. She was 67 and dying of lung cancer. As told to the B.C. Catholic by her daughter Bronwyn Gray (shown below in photo with her mother, Pat), Pat was calm during those summer days two years ago as she prepared for what she believed could be her final journey.

Weakened by the disease that was taking her life, she could only speak in a whisper, but she could still read, and it was to her Bible that she turned in she and her family believed were her final days.

On one July morning, Pat’s doctor approached her as usual. This time, however, it wasn’t to ask how she was doing, but to offer to euthanize her by administering medical assistance in dying (MAiD).

Pat’s own account picks up the story:

“I quickly said no,” Pat said in a note she dictated to Bronwyn, “and then showed her my bookmark that said, ‘With God all things are possible.’ She agreed with me and then added that God uses tools to help us and that MAiD was a help for those in great pain.”

Pat said she felt saddened that, instead of offering hope, her doctor seemed to want her “gone.”

Bronwyn said her mother had every reason to be upset by the uninvited offer, and by what she perceived as an attempt to use her faith to justify it.

Pat used the moment to reflect more deeply on her beliefs.

“The doctor didn’t realize that God has such a BIG plan for His children, that one’s life, no matter what, is sacred and precious, that God through Jesus puts hope in our hearts daily to sustain us,” Pat wrote. “And if God wants to use my life longer for even one more miracle, it will be worth it.”

After Bronwyn finished typing the note, Pat initialled it simply: “P.G.”

Pat died naturally and peacefully, more than than three months later, on Oct. 29, and during that time she received the “one more miracle” she had hoped for.

It was not a physical healing, but a reconciliation. In the final weeks of her life, Pat was reunited with her estranged husband, who had left her and their four children more than 30 years earlier. After decades apart, and nearly 20 years after their divorce, the couple remarried.

“It’s almost prophetic, what happened,” Bronwyn said. “My father’s reconciliation with my mom definitely made a difference in my relationship with my dad—a positive one. It was healing for the whole family.”

The healing deepened when her father spoke at Pat’s funeral.

“It was beautiful how he honoured her,” Bronwyn said. “It was amazing.”

Bronwyn later chose to share her mother’s story through a film-based ministry she founded called WorthMore, which promotes the dignity of human life and offers support to those facing end-of-life decisions.

As the 10th anniversary of MAiD’s legalization approaches, stories like Pat Gray’s offer a response to what critics describe as a dominant cultural narrative that frames euthanasia as compassionate and inevitable.

A recent analysis by the Cardus think tank suggests public support for MAiD may not be as firmly grounded as often portrayed. Cardus’s Feb. 12 report said many Canadians misunderstand key aspects of the law.

More than a quarter of respondents in one poll confused MAiD with withdrawing treatment, while nearly 40 percent conflated it with palliative sedation.

Only 19.2 percent correctly understood that a person does not need to be terminally ill to qualify for MAiD, and only 20.7 percent knew that a person may refuse effective treatment and still be eligible.

“Canadians’ majority support for MAiD only as a last resort is incongruent with the law,” author Rebecca Vachon wrote.

That disconnect may help explain growing political resistance in some provinces.

On March 18, Alberta introduced the Safeguards for Last Resort Termination of Life Act, which would restrict aspects of MAiD within the province.

“I think that we’re failing in our duty to give people hope,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said.

The act would also pre-emptively ban MAiD for mature minors and advance requests, as recommended in February 2023 by Parliament’s Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying.

The legislation would prevent “regulated health professionals” from providing information about MAiD unless the patient raises it, effectively barring doctors from initiating the kind of potentially coercive, uninvited conversations reported in the cases of Pat Gray and, as noted in the April 27 B.C. Catholic, Catholic priest Father Larry Holland.

Some coverage of the legislation has framed it as a restriction on rights. Other voices argue it reflects growing concern about how far the system has expanded.

Patricia Murphy, program director at the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute, said media portrayals play a significant role in shaping public perception.

“People couldn’t imagine this 15 years ago,” she said. “Now they see it regularly portrayed in a positive light.”

Murphy pointed to what St. John Paul II described as the “conditioning power” of media.

“When the dignity and beauty of life—even in suffering—is shown, it shapes how people think,” she said.

She pointed to initiatives such as the Echoes palliative-care storytelling project, which highlights experiences of accompaniment rather than assisted death.

One such story tells of a dying physician who declined MAiD in order to demonstrate that “dying with dignity is dying loved.”

Catholic teaching continues to reject euthanasia while affirming the duty to care for the suffering. Resources such as the Archdiocese of Edmonton’s Hope and Dignity program emphasize that human life remains sacred and that suffering, while difficult, is not without meaning.