Earl's Way From: The Washington Post | Date: January 9, 1996| Author: | Copyright 1996 The Washington Post. This material is published under license from the Washington Post.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post.Copyright information

When Earl Blaisdell announced he was going to starve himself, his wife Carmi thought at first he was cracking a bad joke.

It was lunchtime. Carmi was putting groceries away when Earl called her into the downstairs room of their Falls Church home where he lay in a hospital bed. He had just finished a buttered slice of seven-grain bread from Fresh Fields.

"I want you to know that I've just eaten my last meal," she remembers him saying.

She realized he was serious.

Taken aback, she found herself making defensive, panicky points. It wouldn't work anyway, she told him, because she'd ...

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