thebrittanyfund.org Brittany Maynard loved to walk through the woods.
It was one the final things the 29-year-old did before she ended her own life in accordance with Oregon's Death With Dignity Act after battling terminal brain cancer, according to her mother, and that is where she was also laid to rest.
During the final months of her life, Maynard had traveled with her family to places such as Tongass National Forest in Alaska and the Grand Canyon.
"Even when seizures began, even when she began to fall on occasion, her ankle giving way as it no longer received messages from her brain, Brittany loved to walk through the woods," her mother wrote.
thebrittanyfund.org On New Year's Day 2014, doctors had diagnosed Maynard with stage four glioblastoma, a malignant brain tumor, and gave her a prognosis of six months left to live. In a surprise move, she announced publicly that she intended to die by taking a fatal dose of barbiturates, prescribed to her by a doctor, when her suffering became too great. She ended her own life, peacefully, on Nov. 1.
"My child walked through the woods the day that she chose to slip the bounds of this earth," Ziegler wrote. "She marveled at nature's beauty as a group of friends and family wandered through trees that were over a hundred years old. We switched places by her side, rotating in and out, everyone longing to be close to her. My sweet girl, on the razor's edge of death, took in the beauty of the day."
"This ability to decide to live, to decide to notice beauty, to decide to be the most that she could be and then go before everything that made her who she was—was diminished, is what made Brittany the bravest and most intelligent woman I've ever known," she added. "I miss her terribly. I am so proud to have been her mother that my heart is full to bursting. Brittany's ashes lie amongst a grove of trees. She is home."
thebrittanyfund.org Maynard's Facebook profile picture shows her with Diaz, her husband of two years, at the Grand Canyon.
The recent holidays, Diaz says in his tribute to his wife, have been tough.
"We moved into our house in northern California two years ago, and the last two holidays we hosted my family for Christmas Eve. We didn't do that this year," he wrote. "I put the lights up outside, but I didn't get a tree or anything. It was Brittany who decorated inside, with lots of holly and wreaths."
"These days I carry her driver's license in my wallet, with mine right behind it," he added. "Whenever I'm paying for something at the grocery store, I see her picture. I remember her day to day smile, her laugh, a conversation. She's the woman I love."
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