Brittany Maynard, 29, ended her life at her home in Portland, Oregon this past Saturday. The terminally ill woman was known as the face of the right-to-die movement.

"Goodbye to all my dear friends and family that I love. Today is the day I have chosen to pass away with dignity in the face of my terminal illness, this terrible brain cancer that has taken so much from me ... but would have taken so much more," she wrote on Facebook, "The world is a beautiful place, travel has been my greatest teacher, my close friends and folks are the greatest givers. I even have a ring of support around my bed as I type ... Goodbye world. Spread good energy. Pay it forward!"

Last spring, Maynard had been diagnosed with a likely stage 4 gliobostama, a malignant brain tumor. Doctors gave her six months to live. She made headlines around the world when she announced her intention to die under Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, which allows the terminally ill to end their lives by voluntarily taking lethal medications prescribed by a doctor for that purpose. Maynard planned to take a lethal dose of barbiturates.

"My glioblastoma is going to kill me and that's out of my control," she told People Magazine last month, "I've discussed with many experts how I would die from it and it's a terrible, terrible way to die. So being able to choose to go with dignity is less terrifying."

On Oct 6, she launched an online video campaign with Compassion & Choices, an end-of-life advocacy group, to encourage the spread of death-with-dignity laws throughout the country.

Maynard knew from the start, that her disease would ultimately kill her. Every doctor she spoke to told her that her cancer was fatal, and that there was, as of yet, no cure. The doctors operated on her and removed as much of the tumor as possible, only to have it grow back, bigger than before, two months later.

After researching her options, she decided against chemotherapy or radiation, saying, "They didn't seem to make sense for me, because of the level of side effects I would suffer and it wouldn't save my life. I've been told pretty much no matter what, I'm going to die - and treatments would extend my life but affect the quality pretty negatively."

In June, Maynard, her husband Dan Diaz, 43, her mother and step-father moved to Oregon because of that state's Death with Dignity Act. She traveled to Alaska, British Columbia, and Yellowstone National Park.

On Oct 21, she and her family took a helicopter ride to the Grand Canyon, a place she had always wanted to visit. The next morning, she suffered a severe seizure, the worst so far.

She told People that she planned to end her life on Nov 1, but released a video this past Thursday suggesting she might not do so that day. Before dying, she asked her mother and husband to carry on her work of getting death-with-dignity laws passed in every state.

She also expressed hopes that they would be able to have a good life without her. She said of Diaz, "I hope he moves on and becomes a father," she said, "There's no part of me that wants him to live out the rest of his life just missing his wife."