Broadcaster, musician and author James Valentine told a gathering of family and friends that he wanted his last days to be full of joy and laughter after being given a terminal cancer diagnosis earlier this year.
“I started to think about the way in which death was so often a time of bitterness, of anger, of regret, shaking your fist at the universe or your god and going, ‘what the hell is going on here?’ I don’t want that,” the much-loved Sydney personality said during a living wake that was filmed for an emotional episode of the ABC’s Australian Story that screened on Monday night.
“I want my last days to be full of joy and happiness and laughter and jokes and humour – all the things I’ve loved through life.”
Valentine’s death, at the age of 64, was deeply felt across Sydney less than two weeks ago. It sparked days of warm tributes by fellow broadcasters and listeners on ABC radio, and prompted discussions about his decision to hold a living wake and choose voluntary assisted dying (VAD).
Before the Australian Story cameras, Valentine urged the 180 guests at the living wake, fittingly held on Valentine’s Day at Clovelly Surf Life Saving Club, to tell him about stupid things they had done together or adventures they had shared.
“This is a gift that I can take with me into these next months, which are going to be tough,” he said. “This is nourishment for my soul, which I’m getting from you today. So thank you.”
The day after Valentine’s death, his wife, clinical psychologist Joanne Corrigan, warmly and bravely told this masthead how, in pain and at risk of slipping into unconsciousness, he had summoned the energy to tell the VAD team that was what he wanted. He was in a bedroom of their eastern suburbs home with her, their son Roy, and daughter Ruby.
“He felt cosy,” she said. “He chose the place in the bed where I sleep all the time. He was like, ‘I want to be here, in this spot. I’m just comfortable.’ It was a very gentle end to the suffering. The three of us said goodbye to him and he was immediately just at peace. It was beautiful.”
On Australian Story, Valentine said the decision to go with VAD “took no thought at all”, adding, “There is a great relief in knowing that should things get too bad, you can stop it. That’s more for Joanne and the kids as it is for me, really.”
He called VAD “a very civilised process” to cut out suffering at the end of life.
“Of course, there’s grief,” he said. “Of course, there’s been sadness. Of course, I’ve been overwhelmed by despair at various points. But how do you come through that to be largely living in a way that’s more accepting?
“I really hate the Dylan Thomas poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. How about you go gentle into that good night? What’s with the rage? What’s with the anger?”
Valentine said he had the first symptoms of what turned out to be cancer in November 2023.
“There were a couple of moments when I had trouble swallowing,” he said. “I just thought … ‘I’m an old man, I’m getting indigestion’. Then I had a night at a party where I sort of scoffed this food. I ended outside on the footpath, like, hanging onto a pole, vomiting. [I thought] ‘Whoa, that’s bad’.”
After tests, Valentine was diagnosed with advanced oesophageal cancer. It led to him stepping away from his program on ABC 702 Sydney, returning after treatment and then, emotionally, retiring from radio after recurrence of the cancer.
On Australian Story, Valentine revealed the brutal words he heard from an oncologist at the time: “Stage four, terminal, inoperable, uncurable, you’re now basically a palliative patient. I don’t want to hear any of those words, let alone in the one sentence.”
But towards the end, Valentine knew that he had been lucky to have had a good life.
“I’ve done lots of things I’ve wanted to do,” he said. “I’ve been happy. I’ve got a wife I love. I’ve got children I love. You understand that we all die. We all die. I just happen to know that mine’s coming.”
Australian Story airs at 8pm on Mondays on the ABC and streams on ABC iview.
