The greatest privilege is to die as you have lived. So, when Jake Shannon found out that his mother, Lynda Bluestein, would be the subject of a documentary about her death, he wasn’t surprised. “It was in line with how my mom lived her whole life.”
He knew that Bluestein was dying, as she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. What the documentarians making Other Side were focusing on was her legal fight to die on her own terms and at a time of her own choosing, under Vermont’s Medical Aid in Dying legislation.
Other Side marks the first filmmaking experience for Heather Hogan, but is far from her first experience with dying. In 2020, she trained as a death doula – a professional guide and source of support for both the dying and those around them – and started to work with filmmaker Carter Oakley on an episodic series about dying called Death Differently. The idea was to spark people’s curiosity, she said, “because curiosity acts as both a shield and a sword. You can get close to uncomfortable things.” In this case, that uncomfortable thing is dying, a topic that American culture is almost uniquely incapable of tackling. “We live in a death-denying culture,” Hogan said, “and I’m not sure what we get out of denying it, because we lose the access to live our lives fully when we deny the fact that it ends.”
With five episodes of the show completed, Hogan recalled, “I reached out to Lynda because I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be useful to be able to share with people a meaningful conversation about medical aid in dying?’” Right from the beginning, Hogan made it clear that the filmmakers wanted to be with her right through to the end of her life, including capturing the moment of her death. “We need to show people, not tell people, and she was a storyteller, so she got that.”
Bluestein was already causing headlines on the question of assisted dying before Hogan emailed her. Living in Connecticut, which has no physician-assisted death legislation, Bluestein was suing the state of Vermont, which had laws in place but restricted them to residents of the Green Mountain State. However, this was just part of a life dedicated to activism. “She’d always been an advocate,” said Shannon of his mother. When Bluestein was younger, she’d worked in poor communities in Appalachia, lobbied for gun control, and escorted women to abortion clinics. “She was constantly putting aside her own self and her own needs for what she thought was a greater good,” he said. When she announced that she was suing Vermont, he said, “It was like, ‘oh, she’s involved in another federal lawsuit.’”
Having a film crew with her constantly during her final months, and even her final moments, would be more than many families could endure. But for Shannon, it was an opportunity to spend time with his mother while she was still herself. “My gratitude and my pride is much greater than my sadness,” he said. “It was almost just like sitting in there and being in awe and getting that last lesson.”
Other Side
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This article appears in March 14 • 2025 and March 7 • 2025.
