The courage to keep living

A few weeks ago I read the news of Margriet Hermans' death. It touched me. A woman known throughout Flanders, with a distinctive voice and a big heart, was told at the end of April that she had cancer. In mid-May, it turned out to be a rare form, with few treatment options. A few weeks later, she was no longer there. She chose euthanasia, surrounded by her family.

What a terrible speed. For her, for her daughter Celien, for everyone who loved her. I read that story with emotion, and my first feeling was one of deep respect. Respect for her, for her family, and for a decision that I do not have to make my own to be able to respect it.

And yet something lingered with me. Something I find hard to ignore, even though I know I'm not expressing a popular opinion with it.

They are two words.

Two words that choose a direction

In the reporting surrounding her choice, and in so many other reports about euthanasia, I always hear the same words come back. Courageous. Wise. I also encounter them in the debate that is currently in full swing about the expansion of euthanasia. And it bothers me, not because I begrudge anyone those words, but because they subtly choose a direction.

No one says it in so many words. No one literally writes that euthanasia is the right choice and that the other path is the wrong one. But by consistently calling one choice 'courageous' and 'wise', an atmosphere is created. An atmosphere in which it resonates that continued suffering is not humane. That whoever threatens to become a burden, can better let go. That the dignified way out is death. And whoever then chooses something else, whoever continues to fight, implicitly gets the label of the less wise, the less courageous attached.

I simply don't agree with that.

Because is euthanasia really the brave choice? I honestly don't know. From a moral standpoint, and equally from a philosophical standpoint, there's at least as much to be said for the opposite. You could argue that it actually takes courage not to choose the end of the struggle. To not evade suffering but to bear it. I don't say that to condemn anyone, I say it to demonstrate how little it's a given that the word 'courage' always lies on the same side of the table.

Let me be very clear about that right away. I don't think we should therefore consider someone who chooses euthanasia as cowardly. That is a conclusion I explicitly do not draw. That choice also requires strong feelings, deep conviction, and often an inhumanly difficult consideration in circumstances I do not know and would wish upon no one. One does not exclude the other. My point is different. I want to shift the tone, not the blame.

Jilke

When I thought about this, I had to think of Jilke Michielsen.

Jilke was a cyclist, former Belgian champion in road cycling and time trial, one of the greatest talents of her generation. In 2023, at eighteen, she was diagnosed with aggressive Ewing's sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. In the summer of 2024, she seemed cancer-free. That joy was short-lived. The disease returned and proved incurable.

And then it comes. Jilke arranged her own funeral. But she refused to give up and count down. She got her driver's license. She started a biomedical sciences program at the university. She lived, as she herself said, from scan to scan, and remained remarkably positive until the end. Her motto: no complaining, just enjoying. On May 15, 2026, barely nineteen years old, she lost her battle.

I then ask myself the question. Isn't that courageous too? To keep living. To keep going for it. Not letting yourself be defined by your illness, even when you know how it will end. For me, there is no doubt about that whatsoever. That is courage in its purest form. And it is a kind of courage for which our society has far too few words.

Why I don't say this lightly

I don't want to judge the lives of others from a comfortable armchair. That's why I'm sharing something personal, even though it's not easy for me.

In 2018, I had a brain hemorrhage. This was followed by a major operation that didn't go as it should have. At that moment, it looked like I would never be able to walk again, and that I would be a burden to my family for the rest of my life. The rehabilitation was long. And I have to be honest. During those months, I was in a deep pit.

When I was there, at the bottom, I thought: it's been enough. Just give me a shot. I know I shouldn't just project my feelings from back then onto someone else, and I'm not doing that. But it's an experience I want to share, precisely because I know how it feels when courage is gone. Every time I couldn't see a way out, when I no longer found the strength to fight, that same thought emerged.

And each time, there was something that pulled me back. Prayer. Faith. And especially the support of my family. The realization that I still wanted to be there for them, that together we could still make the best of it, gave me the courage to fight again. That helped me to fight back.

I don't want to make a miracle story out of it. It's not that courage overcomes every mortal illness. We don't become immortal through our faith, and whoever keeps fighting sometimes still loses, like Jilke. That's really not what I'm claiming. But I do believe that it takes courage to keep going when things are difficult. When you face challenges that seem insurmountable, and which, without the prospect of the eternal, might actually be truly insurmountable.

Paul writes in Romans 5:3-4 that tribulation produces perseverance, and perseverance, proven character, and proven character, hope. That is not a nice saying to put on a tile. It is an order of things. Suffering that is endured can form something that otherwise could never have arisen. And in 2 Corinthians 4:16 it says that even though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For me, it always plays a role that this life is a gift, bestowed by our heavenly Father, and that it somethingmeans to treat it carefully.

The tone I hope to set

I do not dream of a society that condemns people. I dream of a society that puts the right words in the right place.

Let us also call courageous those who fight, who persist, who continue to embrace life along with suffering. Even wise. Let us throw a flower to everyone who chooses to go on and seeks ways to continue fighting. Not because the other choice is cowardly, it is not, but because today we almost only provide words for that one side of the story.

Because that is what truly worries me. Not the individual decision, which I respect. But the silent advance of an atmosphere in which the escape of death seems to become the only correct choice. In which staying alive becomes something for which you almost have to justify yourself.

Let's turn it around. Let's encourage life. Let's praise the courage to carry on, even when it seems hopeless. And let's show respect for the life we have been given.

Don't whine, just enjoy, Jilke said. Perhaps that is the bravest thing a person can say.