My Friend Chooses How and When to Die Does death lose its sting if it is the triumph of the will, and not an act of submission?

Fussier friends would shiver in the mid-October wind, but Ann Mandelstamm is in her eighties and still hiking, so I grab a table on the patio. Just as I open the menu, she arrives, clad in a sporty navy sweater and jeans and wearing her trademark red lipstick, her red-gold hair pulled back with combs. She sits, her movements as lithe and graceful as ever. She has always had a quiet, midcentury glamour about her—the Kate Hepburn sort, impatient with frippery. Neither of us even mentions moving indoors.

It is good to see her; it has been more than a year. She is animated and fun, teasing the server as she orders: “I had authority in my voice, didn’t I? I used to teach high school.” We talk about books and, with a sigh, politics, then split a pizza. Somehow Ann has always managed to go deep—think hard, read tough stuff, fight for justice—yet remain delighted by the world.

As the plates are whisked away, she says, “I have something for you,” and hands me a sheet of paper. “Not many people know,” she says. “I’m going to mail this to my dearest friends just before.”

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