F E E L I N G
L I G H T
W I T H I N
PEG MORTON remembered for the way she lived and died
EDITOR’S NOTE : The quote on our front
cover this week is taken from a sign Peg Morton
carried in 2002, see below. Its origin is a policy
statement by the Friends Committee on National
Legislation, a Quaker lobby. See fcnl.org.
argaret Miner Morton, better
known as Peg Morton in the activ-
ist and Quaker community, died
Dec. 19 at age 85 of natural causes.
Before she died, her voice and cha-
risma still filled rooms, and with
medical intervention, she likely
would have had more years to live, love and be politically
active, but her body was telling her, “It’s time to go.”
She was hospitalized with pneumonia over Thanks-
giving weekend, and her overall health and vitality were
slipping. She said she didn’t wish to burden herself or her
loved ones, or expend resources through the kind of pro-
longed decline she had observed in others, most recently
while living at the Olive Plaza senior apartments down-
town. Morton said she appreciated medical science, but
not when it artificially extended life at great expense and
suffering.
She granted EW an hour of one-on-one conversation in
her light-filled 12th floor apartment, overlooking east Eu-
gene and the Cascades in the distance. She was limiting
her diet to a cup of yogurt a day and some green tea. She
was about to begin the dry fast that ended her life Dec.
19, after two days in a coma, at the home of friends and in
the presence of loved ones. The way she chose to die, by
not eating or taking in fluids for 12 days, represents only a
small part of her life, but it was also a spiritual and politi-
cal statement.
In the final chapter of her 2013 memoir, Feeling Light
Within, I Walk, Morton wrote, “It is my prayer that I live
through my dying in a sacred way. I hope to feel the com-
panionship of my community, and also a divine compan-
ionship, to feel the Spirit alive within me. … There are
many situations concerning medical treatment and our
deaths over which we have no control, but we often can
take control and make decisions.” A longer version of that
final chapter was written when she was still in her 70s.
“I feel no need to live to a ripe old age,” Morton wrote.
“I already have.” And she observed that the lifestyle, lon-
gevity and choices we enjoy in much of North America are
not universal, and are actually due to the “exploitation of
M
other peoples and of the natural world.” Solidarity with the
poor and oppressed people of the world was always on her
mind. She struggled with reconciling her family’s wealth
and stature with the abject poverty she observed. She, like
many Quakers, chose to live a simple, modest life, con-
suming little of the Earth’s dwindling resources.
A Painful Decision
Peg Morton’s decision to end her life through fasting
was consistent with her philosophical beliefs and religious
faith, but it turned out to be more emotionally difficult than
she had anticipated. She had observed fellow Quakers and
spiritual leaders in their final years and had good friends
among the dying residents at Olive Plaza. She noted there
are numerous ways to leave this life, but not all are done
consciously.
“Many of us feel that we want our bodies to go when
they are ready,” she said. “But how do we determine that?
It’s so easy to take the next step, to do the medical test or
procedure and then you feel a little better, or you don’t.
So it’s a gradual progression until you have a stroke or
BY TED TAYLOR
cancer. Often the people who are sitting in these halls, if
their memories and faculties are not totally gone, wish they
were dead, wish they could just go, and they don’t know
how. Some of them just stop eating, and sometimes when
your body tells you not to eat, it’s easier for people and
they stop eating.”
The emotional pain came from recognizing how many
people were shocked and hurt by her decision. “I feel my
heart breaking open now,” she said, on the verge of tears. “I
know this is something I’m supposed to do, but then there
is the pain of the people left behind. And there is my own
pain because I won’t see them again and I won’t hug them
again. I need them and I won’t have them. I’ve been think-
ing about my three daughters, too, and I’ve had a long,
painful talk with my daughter Heidi, and my poor daughter
Do Mi is trying so hard.” She added, “How will what I am
doing affect my grandchildren and my daughters?”
Her family struggled with the decision, along with
some of her activist and Quaker friends who wanted more
time with her or thought her influence was still needed in
our troubled world. “You are a woman of unique charac-
PHOTO BY PAUL DIX
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January 7, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com