General News
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Make-A-Wish spokerpeson Sandra Stephens expressed her surprise at the request. “Normally the kids who contact us want to meet their sporting hero, or ride a pony. We’ve never had anyone ask to be euthanazed before. I mean maybe if they’d wanted Greg Norman or someone to smother them with a pillow, we could have made some calls. But with Matthew we were a little in the lurch at first, and had no choice but to turn him down” said Stephens.
Upon having his initial wish to die denied, Matthew then made a series of new wishes. “After we declined the first request, he started talking about how it was his life-long dream to go over Niagra Falls in a barrel. We might have considered this in the past, but Matt’s deathwish made us suspicious. The boy’s dying wish to see the rebel-infested jungles of Colombia was also turned down.
“We finally agreed on a series of piano lessons, a gift we’ve given to several moribund youngsters in the past” said Stephens. “But the teacher stopped the course after the first lesson.”
“I’m always happy to help a dying kid fulfill his wish” said Mavis Bradshaw, 73. “But I’m not prepared to conduct lessons on a piano teetering off the edge of a hospital’s roof, while the student stands underneath it shouting ‘oblivion now!'”
Today Matthew finally made a wish that the organisation was able to grant. “I know he’s on the news all the time, but I guess I just never considered Philip Nitschke a celebrity before,” said Stephens.