Between being and nothingness

Suicide is a contentious subject. It involves deeply held moral, religious, ethical and legal beliefs. Those who choose to die by suicide usually cannot argue their case amid the speculation that follows.

- AKANKSHYA ABISMRUTA

Recently, a former Canadian High Commissioner informed his friends that he had chosen to use Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying following a diagnosis of early-stage Alzheimer's. This has sparked a domestic and international discussion on the ethics or otherwise of assisted suicide. So, when a mother who lost both her sons to suicide (unassisted in the US) chooses to respect their decision, readers are likely to be stunned and prolife contenders agitated.

Yiyun Li is an award-winning Chinese-American author with multiple novels and short story collections to her name. She lost her elder son, Vincent (16), in 2017, and James (19) in 2024. Both chose suicide. Upon Vincent's death, she wrote a novel Where Reasons End (2019) featuring dialogue between a grieving writer and her son after his suicide. She writes, "The book for Vincent [who lived flamboyantly and demandingly] was published as fiction because it could only be called that: no dead child has ever come back to have an argument with his mother."

For James, the silent one who indulged in philosophy and languages, she says, "It's an impossible task to write a book for James. It will have to be done through thinking, rather than feeling; that is how I will reach for an approximation of understanding James." The result is a profoundly poignant contemplation, Things in Nature Merely Grow.