By Elisabeth Egan, Photo: Lisa Kereszi/The New York Times, The New York Times, February 27, 2022
On Jan. 26, 2020, Amy Bloom and her husband, Brian Ameche, boarded a flight from New York to Zurich. They hadn’t called on their usual driver to transport them from their home in Connecticut to John F. Kennedy Airport; they didn’t want to make small talk about their itinerary. Usually they flew coach, but this time they were in business class.
“In our Swissair pods, Brian and I toast each other, and we say, ‘Here’s to you,’ a little hesitantly, instead of what we usually say, ‘Cent’anni’(‘May we have a hundred years,’ a very Italian toast),” Bloom writes in her 10th book and first memoir, “In Love,” which Random House will publish on March 8. “There is no ‘Cent’anni’ for us; we won’t make it to our 13th wedding anniversary.”
Bloom and Ameche weren’t going to Switzerland to enjoy skiing, art or fondue. They were en route to Dignitas, a nonprofit organization in the suburbs of Zurich, where Ameche, 66, would legally, peacefully and painlessly end his own life. The accomplished architect and former Yale football player had received a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in 2019, and he decided that the “long goodbye” was not for him. Bloom recalls him saying, “I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.”
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