After her husband’s death, Diana Martinetto is helping others die in dignity.

Jeffrey Latts and Diana Martinetto were young when they met, working in the same hospital in Southern California in 1974, he as an internist and she as a nurse. They quickly fell in love and were married; he was 27, she was 23.

Half a century passed. “He was my best friend and wonderful partner,” Martinetto says.

They had successful careers and moved all over the U.S., then in 2011, retired to Monterey. About five years later, Martinetto started noticing changes in the man she knew so intimately, and wondered about cognitive decline. “I mentioned it to him. At that time, he still had this sharpness in his eyes that said, ‘I don’t want to go there, I’m OK.’ There was no need to push it, just to surface it,” she says.

But as time went on, the signs became more pronounced. In 2018, Latts was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, which has no known cure.

He made lifestyle changes that might slow the progression, picking up a new instrument (keyboard) and upping his exercise routine. But the decline cannot be stopped, only slowed.

The couple, both experienced in the medical field, began talking about what they knew lay ahead. Latts wanted to die on his own terms, before he lost all cognitive capacity and required full-time care.

They began to research medical aid in dying (MAID), legal in California since 2016 through the End-of-Life Option Act. But the law comes with many restrictions, including that a patient must have a terminal disease from which they are expected to die within six months, and they must have the capacity to make medical decisions – meaning most patients with dementia are excluded, because by the time they are within six months of death they lack capacity.

This is where organizations like the Final Exit Network come in, operating outside of the medical system to help patients end their lives legally and on their own terms. Protected by the First Amendment, FEN shares information only – no assistance, financial or otherwise. The nonprofit accepts about 100 applications a year and a pair of volunteers visit clients to answer questions.

“I just want people to know they have options.”

In 2024, Latts was a FEN applicant. Volunteers visited Monterey and explained the process by which he could die by suicide peacefully with nitrogen gas. Weeks passed.

Then one day, after Latts returned home from his usual routine, walking the couple’s two senior dogs – Gracie, “half miniature poodle, half everything else,” and Augie, “half maltese, half everything else” – he had a peaceful smile on his face, Martinetto says. She remembers him saying, “I am the luckiest person in the world.”

It was Sept. 25, 2024. He was 76. It was time.

Now, two years later, Martinetto volunteers with A Better Exit, which advocates for expanding the End-of-Life Option Act, and End of Life Choices California, sharing information about options – including FEN – with anyone who will listen.

A lot of people want to listen, according to Lowrey Brown, FEN’s Exit Guide Program director. “We get call after call after call every single day from people seeing horrific deaths,” Brown says. “People spend years in facilities where they don’t want to be. The current status quo involves such an incredible level of suffering and indignity and fear.”

The evolution of the right-to-die movement means more people are talking openly about their final exits and trying to make plans, even as they look ahead at diagnoses excluded from the law. “Maybe it’s a neurodegenerative disease,” Brown says. “Maybe your eyesight is going, you can’t read. Your hearing is going, you can’t socialize. Your joints hurt, so you can’t garden. Your bowels aren’t reliable, so you can’t go out. The walls are closing in. People say: ‘I know where this is going and I would rather my final chapter be now, rather than three years from now.’” (A note to anyone in crisis: The 988 suicide hotline is available 24/7.)

For Martinetto, information is power – people should be aware of their options, she says, even outside of California’s established MAID process.

“I want the word to get out. Regardless of what people decide, I want them to feel they have control over how they die,” she says. “I just want people to know they have options and give people autonomy. It gives peace of mind.”

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@montereycountynow.com.