‘Muttertag’ by Ralf Schlatter

On June 21, the longest day of the year, at 5:30 in the morning, the protagonist - a middle-aged man - starts walking from Zurich where he lives to Schaffhausen, to his mother's house. He should arrive at 9:30 p.m. and intends to accompany her as she dies. The narrator's father died of a sudden cardiac arrest, preceding a period during which his mother fell ill and was confined to bed for several weeks. Her desire to die stems from a profound weariness with life, exacerbated by the loss of her partner, her illness and prolonged bedridden state, and the infrequent visits of her children, which intensify her feelings of loneliness and isolation. During his walk, the protagonist bids farewell to his mother and reflects on his childhood and family; he also describes what is happening around him and where he is. The son has an ambivalent, love-hate relationship with his mother, and cannot understand his mother's “happy” middle-class life. On the one hand, he loves her because of filial duty, on the other, he blames her for not being strong and not standing up for things she likes. In the son's eyes, his mother sacrificed her life for her husband and children. Moreover, he blames her for the fact that he has been occupied by his mother's love his whole life, even as an adult. The closer he is to arriving at her home, the more clearly he understands what he is supposed to do. Upon reaching it, he decides not to enter his mother's home and not to help her commit suicide.

The central theme of the book revolves around the ethical dilemma of determining appropriate support for end-of-life decisions, particularly in the absence of family support. Despite knowing that both his mother and father joined an organization that offered assisted suicide, the narrator criticizes his mother's desire to end her life by suicide as a departure from the natural order, but ultimately honors her decision. However, the author refrains from offering definitive solutions, choosing instead to allow readers to consider whether the son's decision not to help his mother die is morally justified.