Death is merciful after all. A measure of its compassion is that Kate Cheney -- now in the company of a loving God -- is no longer around to hear how painfully her story has been twisted to fit a variety of agendas.

And Cheney's granddaughter, Pat Bowman, whose adoptive father chose to jump off a fifth-floor balcony when he despaired of his end days, doesn't have to worry about what Cheney was thinking in the final hour of her life.

Kate Cheney killed herself on Aug. 29, more than three months after submitting to the dictates of Oregon's Death with Dignity Act. She was 85 and had inoperable stomach cancer. Five weeks after finally receiving the lethal dose of barbiturates, Cheney died in the bedroom of her Southeast Portland home, surrounded by her family.

Such intensely personal dramas usually warrant a veil of privacy. The veil around Kate Cheney was lifted by an October story in The Sunday Oregonian by Erin Hoover Barnett.

The family approved the lift. Cheney and her daughter, Erika Goldstein, thought we would all benefit by knowing more about the gantlet Cheney was forced to run before she was allowed to end her life.

In going public, the family encouraged a debate over Cheney's choice. They also invited criticism from opponents of assisted suicide, some of which was as nasty as it was irrational.

Greg Hamilton of Physicians for Compassionate Care uncorked a massive e-mail that painted Cheney's death as, by and large, a case of matricide aided by an HMO conspiracy.

Hamilton even characterized Goldstein as a "disgruntled daughter" for demanding a second opinion when a psychiatrist suggested Cheney didn't have the mental capacity to elect suicide.

David Reinhard, an editorial columnist for The Oregonian, followed up by parroting Hamilton's opinion and reminding everyone that the HMO, Kaiser Permanente, "stands to gain financially if its patient chooses suicide."

And Wesley Smith, writing in The Weekly Standard, accused Goldstein of "doctor shopping." Cheney's story, he argued, showed "how Oregon's law endangers those who are the least capable of defending themselves."

The difference between those who made this life-and-death decision and those who are deriding it is simple:

Cheney had a fatal disease. Opponents of assisted suicide share a lethal agenda.

They are entitled to such an opinion. They are allowed an agenda. I have one, too. The telling difference is that in the matter of assisted suicide, I'm not demanding that you -- or an 85-year-old woman with stomach cancer -- abide by my rules.

What's especially pathetic in the aftermath of Cheney's suicide is that the very family that gathered around Kate to support her decision is being accused of greasing her path to an early grave.

Bowman, Cheney's granddaughter, admits she brought her own history to Kate's bedside. In 1991, her adoptive father, Clyde Bowman, dragged a step stool out onto his balcony at the Holladay Park Plaza and leapt to his death.

"He didn't have a terminal illness, he had a hiatal hernia, but he was scared when the pain would come," Bowman said. "And he was scared to death about becoming dependent. He took the only way out that he could see, which was committing suicide in a fairly brutal way.

"He took that leap all by himself. We were all there for my grandmother."

Bowman is convinced her grandmother was of sound mind. She believes Kate's gravitation toward assisted suicide was subjected to an arduous, thorough review by Dr. Robert Richardson, the administrator at Kaiser.

And she is open to the possibility that you and your family might reach a different conclusion at the cusp of life and death. She wouldn't think of robbing you of the power and responsibility of that choice.

"It's like the bumper sticker says: 'Don't believe in abortion? Don't have one,' " Bowman said. "Don't believe in assisted suicide? Don't do it."