one final trip

Gabriella Walsh rests in a studio her close friend let her stay in rent free until she decided to end her life through medical aid on April 1, 2022 in Santa Paula, CA. She had just booked a flight for a three-month adventure in Spain when she discovered an aggressive breast cancer had metastasized into bone cancer. She canceled the trip, moved into a friends home and made plans to die through California’s Death with Dignity law.

Gabriella feels around the tumors in her right breast after a shower at home in Santa Paula. The decision to die through medical aid gave her a profound peace — a final freedom that she hoped would one day be afforded to people in every state. “My life, my body, my death,” she said. “It’s just my time.”

Gabriella has her vitals taken by a nurse who managed her hospice care, Jack Barsegyan on Thursday, June 9, 2022 in Santa Paula, CA. They discuss the medicine Gabriella will ingest for her death and what sort of food she should eat the night before.

Elidia Elizarraraz a hairdresser down the street from where Gabriella lives, gives her a kiss while blowdrying her hair. Elizarraraz offered the service twice a week for a fifteen dollars which brought Gabriella to tears because tending to her own hair in this way was no longer possible as her cancer progressed. “Generosity comes from places you would least expect,” Gabriella said.

Gabriella Walsh sings with a group friends she’s had since high school: Collette Hillier, Linda Fey and Kathy Menzie, left to right, during a gathering on Saturday, May 21, 2022 in Santa Paula, CA. “I’ve lived a magical life,” Gabriella said. “What else can I ask of life?”

A list Gabriella Walsh made details the many places she has lived over the course of her life. It was her 47th move when she moved into her last home she called her nido de algodon, her cotton nest. She was long guided by a spirit of wanderlust — a word she had tattooed onto her left wrist in her late 50s.

Gabriella’s friend Rebecca Rincon consoles her while talking about the day she went in for a mammogram and and came out diagnosed with terminal cancer. Together they drank two bottles of prosecco, giggled and cried. Teasing Gabriella about the afterlife, Rincon asked Gabriella to, “show up to me in the form of a free drink from a stranger at a bar.”

Gabriella Walsh takes her evening medicine and rubs cbd lotion on her legs on June 15, 2022 in Santa Paula, CA. She used a fentanyl patch, extra opioids—Norco—that she could take when needed, a blood pressure medication, Xanax, Ambien and Restoril.

Gabriella Walsh and her longtime friend Collette Hillier sit by the shore on Wednesday, July 6, 2022 in Ventura, CA. Earlier, Hillier sent Gabriella a text: “I’ve admired you and your courage but I’ve never admired you as much as I have this month.” Moments like these feel like living funerals for Gabriella, an opportunity for people to say goodbye while she is still alive.

Gabriella has her last session with a therapist she has seen off and on since 2009 on Friday, July 1, 2022 in Santa Paula, CA. “I just feel like time is moving really slowly,” She told her therapist. “I want it to be July 16.” The date she chose to die.

A photograph of Gabriella Walsh and her father was one of the last mementos she had on display in her home before dying through medical aid. Gabriella had many early experiences with death, including the death of her father when she was 7. She recalls pulling up a chair and sitting next to his body without fear.

Gabriella smiles as the closing credits of Where the Crawdad Sings play at a movie theater where she was joined by her dear friends on her last full day of life before dying through medical aid on July 15, 2022 in Oxnard, CA. Gabriella listened to audio books at night to relax before sleep and earlier she had listened to Where the Crawdad Sings. So when she discovered that the movie would open the Friday before she died she made a plan with her friends to go. A line in the movie says, “I don't know if there is a dark side to nature. Just inventive ways to endure, against all odds.”

Rudy Sanzana, a friend of more than 30 years hugs Gabriella one last time before she dies through medical aid on July 16, 2022 in Santa Paula, CA. When Gabriella was diagnosed with terminal cancer she did not consider life extending treatments but rather quality of the time she had left. She said she was not afraid of death. “I just feel like I’m going on a trip,” she said, calmly.

Gabriella takes a fatal dose of medication prescribed through California’s death-with-dignity law with her death doula Jill Schock, right, feeding her spoonfuls of mango between sips on on July 16, 2022 in Santa Paula, CA. She died at 1:38 p.m. She was 64.