The first time I experienced Robert Munsch’s now-iconic children’s story Love You Forever was in 1992. At the time, I was very pregnant with my firstborn, whom I had learned would be a son. Some friends from church threw my husband and me a baby shower, and one of the ladies in attendance gave us the book. Before presenting it to us, she read it aloud to the assembled guests, singing the song of the book’s title whenever it appeared: 

I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
As long as I’m living,
My baby you’ll be.

If you aren’t familiar with the story (spoiler alert!), it begins with a mother cradling her newborn son while singing him this song. As the child grows to adulthood, his mother continues showing up at various times and places to remind him of her love by singing the song, sometimes going to humorous lengths to do so. At the end of the book, the now-grown son visits his aging and sickly mother to cradle and sing the song to her before going home to do the same with his own newborn son. 

As it has for so many others, the book quickly became a fixture in our family’s life together. My husband and I read it regularly to all three of our children, rarely getting through it without having to pause multiple times to choke back tears. The book’s messages — of familial love passed down through generations, of children learning from their parents about what truly matters, and of the beauty of life at all its stages, from beginning to end — have been embraced by countless readers for almost 40 years. Those messages resonate whether you have children or not and whether you had good parents or not, because we are all called, in our own way, to pass down the best of what we have been given in life to the next generation. 

Life Is a Gift to Be Cherished

This is why it was so tragically disappointing, a few weeks ago, to learn that Munsch has been approved for assisted suicide by the Canadian health care system. (Its proponents prefer to refer to it as “assisted dying,” but let’s call it what it is.) Munsch, who is 80 and suffers from dementia and Parkinson’s disease, reportedly decided to pursue assisted suicide as an option several years ago but only recently made his decision public. He is not poised to exercise the option in the immediate future but says he will do so based on the progression of his conditions and the need to act while he still has the mental capacity. 

Munsch’s publishers issued a joint statement on Instagram celebrating Munsch for the “incredibly generous act” of sharing his decision to die by choice, saying “[I]t reminds us, once again, why Robert’s work continues to touch many generations.”

What an unbelievably twisted perversion of the message of a book that has touched so many people of all ages because it celebrates the beauty of life at all its stages — from its natural beginning to its natural end and everywhere in between.

Yet it was to be expected. Today, so-called Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) — its implementation governed by specific circumstances and requirements depending on jurisdiction — is allowed in some form in nine European countries, Australia, and New Zealand. It was legalized throughout Canada in 2016. In the United States, it is now legal in 10 states and the District of Columbia. Efforts to legalize it in the U.K. continue apace. 

The False Idol of ‘Quality’

More than 10 years ago, Ezekiel Emanuel (brother of Rahm), a medical doctor and former adviser to President Barack Obama who helped craft Obamacare, wrote an article for The Atlantic called “Why I Hope to Die at 75.” The article, while not specifically about assisted suicide or euthanasia, promoted a utilitarian view of life that was supportive of speeding life’s end when that life begins to suffer in so-called “quality.” The “quality” argument is at the heart of most of the pro-death contingent’s thinking about life.

Earlier this year, Philadelphia magazine checked in with Emanuel, now 68, to see if he still holds the same view. The article’s author, Gina Tomaine, reported that he does but that it’s a bit more “nuanced” now — that 75 was a “somewhat arbitrary” number chosen to illustrate Emanuel’s “central argument” that what matters most is not the length, but the quality, of one’s days. (I do wonder if the closer he gets to 75, the more “arbitrary” it becomes.) 

What Emanuel and others like him are sadly missing is that the value of a human life is found in neither its earthly length nor its “quality.” Both of those things are measured by demonstrably dumb, weak, and sinful creatures (just look around you), locked in space and time, who are incapable of seeing what an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving Creator sees. That Creator loved His creation so much that He sent His Son, Jesus, to redeem it by dying on a cross, rising from the grave, and, in so doing, defeating sin, death, and the devil. Now, to those who put their trust in Him, He offers a perfect life in eternity with Him, with days that cannot be numbered and a joy beyond comprehension. In trying to imagine such a life, I don’t think His beloved and redeemed children would be wrong to picture Him cradling them in His arms as He sings words like: “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.” 

From Generation to Generation

Little is known of Munsch’s faith. According to a short autobiographical note on his official website, he “studied for 7 years to be a Jesuit priest, only to find that I was lousy priest material.” Elsewhere, he is identified as a Unitarian and perhaps even hostile to religion.

As Munsch faces his waning days, I pray he will remember the message of his book, have a change of heart about the course he has chosen, and allow himself to be cared for as he lives out his days rather than intentionally shortening them. More importantly, I pray that, if he doesn’t know Christ yet, he will come to faith in the only One who has truly loved him forever.

In 2014, in response to Ezekiel’s article about wanting to die at 75, I wrote about my desire to live long and burden my children. At the time, I was caring for my own mother as she approached the end of her life. As difficult as those days were, they blessed me and my family in astonishing ways. I know that someday, as God wills, my children will do the same for me.

A few years ago, almost exactly 30 years after a friend gave my husband and me a copy of Love You Forever and read and sang it to us at a baby shower for our firstborn son, I read and sang the book to that same child, now all grown up, at a baby shower for his and his wife’s firstborn son. As usual, I couldn’t get through it without crying. My son and his wife now have their own copy of the book, and it has already been read and sung innumerable times to their own children.

Regardless of the personal decisions of the book’s author, the enduring message and legacy of his book will continue to bless readers — and families — for generations to come.