The Whole Death Catalog

by Harold Schechter

Proper identification of both the deceased and survivors. You don’t want to show up at a house and tell the woman who answers the door that her husband has just been killed by a hit-and-run driver—only to discover that you’re at the wrong address.

  Meeting the survivors. Except in the case of anticipated deaths—when it’s okay for a nurse or other hospital official to deliver the sad news by phone—notifiers should contact survivors in person and break the news in appropriate surroundings (for example, inside the house, with the family members seated, as opposed to standing on the front steps).

  Supplying specific information. Experts agree that the notifier should provide the crucial details—the when, where, and how of the person’s death—in a forthright, deliberate manner, with brief pauses between each piece of information to allow the hearer to absorb the shock.

  Avoiding euphemisms. Without being overly blunt (see the previous joke), the notifier should be open, honest, and plainspoken, using words such as dead, died, and killed instead of gone, passed away, or in a better place. Survivors need to accept the truth.

  Dealing supportively with the reactions of survivors. The shock of receiving sudden tragic news elicits all kinds of reactions, from hysteria to stunned disbelief to violent assaults on the messenger. The notifier must learn to respond constructively to these reactions and avoid saying things that will only make matters worse (such as, “Oh well, you have other children” or “No use crying over spilled milk”).

  Clearly, the keys to a decent death notification are empathy and tact on the part of the person entrusted with breaking the news. Unfortunately, not every notifier is endowed with these qualities. As a result, the organization MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) has instituted a program of training seminars to educate police officers, sheriffs, and other professionals about the “need for clear, informed, and compassionate death notifications.” The goal is to avoid situations like the one described by Stewart and Lord, in which a sheriff’s deputy showed up at a woman’s house and—speaking through the screen door—informed her that her daughter had just been killed. When the reeling mother cried out that she didn’t know how she would survive without her child, the deputy shrugged and said: “Well, ma’am, I guess God is just telling you that it’s time to stand on your own two feet.”

  RECOMMENDED READING

  People who work in medicine, law enforcement, or any other field where death notification is part of the job will find practical information in the following: Alan E. Stewart and Janice Harris Lord, “The Death Notification Process: Recommendations for Practice, Training, and Research” in Handbook of Death and Dying, volume 2, ed. Clifton D. Bryant (Sage, 2003); R. Moroni Leash, Death Notification: A Practical Guide to the Process (Upper Access, 1994); and Janice Harris Lord, Death Notification: Breaking the Bad News with Compassion for the Survivor and Care of the Professional (Mothers Against Drunk Driving, 1997).

  The Right to Die

  In a culture like ours—one that exalts a never-say-die, when-the-going-gets-tough-the-tough-get-going ethos—people who commit suicide have often been perceived as moral weaklings, if not outright cowards. This attitude, however, is not universal. Depending on the circumstances, taking your own life has been regarded as not just acceptable but even honorable in certain times and places. So long as they performed the deed in a suitably manly way—by falling on their sword, say, or cutting their own throats—Roman soldiers facing defeat were admired for killing themselves in order to prevent capture and slavery. The Japanese practice of seppuku (more commonly known as hara-kiri)—slitting your own belly to avoid or attenuate shame—is an analogous culturally sanctioned form of suicide.

  Even some early Christians approved of suicide. Believing that earthly existence only exposed them to suffering and sin and that it was in their best interest to get to heaven as soon as possible, members of early sects such as the Circumcelliones committed suicide en masse by hurling themselves off cliffs. Embracing death through martyrdom was also extolled as a righteous emulation of Christ’s sacrifice. It wasn’t until the fifth century when St. Augustine condemned the practice as a violation of the sixth commandment (“Thou shalt not kill”), that the Church pronounced suicide a crime. What was formerly applauded as martyrdom was now reviled as self-murder. In succeeding centuries, the Church did its best to discourage suicide by imposing harsh sanctions on those who committed it. People who took their own lives were denied Christian burial and their remains were subjected to various indignities. In medieval England, for example, such unfortunates were customarily buried during the night at well-traveled crossroads with stakes driven through their hearts. As a further disincentive, their property was also confiscated by the state.

  While the Church remained adamantly opposed to suicide, more flexible attitudes began to evolve during the Renaissance, epitomized by John Donne’s posthumously published treatise, Biothanatos, which argued (in the words of its subtitle) “That Self-Homicide is not so Naturally Sinne that it may never be otherwise”—that is, under certain circumstances, suicide should not be regarded as a crime. In the following century the philosopher David Hume published his “Essay on Suicide,” which systematically refuted the standard religious arguments against suicide and asserted that it was within the rights of the individual to take his own life. By the nineteenth century, a movement was under way in Britain to decriminalize suicide, and by the last decade of the century people who killed themselves were finally allowed to enjoy such privileges as daytime burial in an actual churchyard without having their property forfeited, their corpses defiled, or stakes driven through their hearts. In certain parts of Europe, suicide even became a fad. The phenomenal popularity of Goethe’s 1774 novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther—which climaxes with its sensitive artistic hero shooting himself in the head because of unrequited love—inspired a host of real-life imitations throughout Germany (copycat suicides among adolescents, a phenomenon that still occurs with dismaying frequency, has come to be known as the “Werther effect”).

  Nowadays—apart from the occasional weirdo UFO cult that promotes mass suicide as a ticket to the stars—suicidal behavior is, by and large, viewed as a symptom of severe mental distress that requires emergency therapeutic intervention. The only exception involves the controversial issue variously known as “rational suicide,” “self-deliverance,” and the “right to die”—that is, the decision of a hopelessly ill, dying person to voluntarily end his or her own life.

  There’s nothing new about this concept. As far back as ancient Roman times, the Stoic philosopher Seneca articulated what many people still regard as the most cogent rationale for geriatric suicide:

  I will not relinquish old age if it leaves my better part intact. But if it begins to shake my mind, if it destroys its faculties one by one, if it leaves me not life but breath, I will depart from the putrid or tottering edifice. I will not escape by death from disease so long as it may be healed, and leaves my mind unimpaired. I will not raise my hand against myself on account of pain, for so to die is to be conquered. But I know that if I must suffer without hope of relief, I will depart, not through fear of the pain itself, but because it prevents all for which I would live.

  Today’s proponents of “self-deliverance” offer the same argument. As New York Times health columnist Jane E. Brody puts it:

  What is the point of living so long if you can no longer enjoy living? What is the point of living until your mind turns to marshmallow and you are reduced to an existence that is less than human? … Why shouldn’t an emotionally sound, thoughtful person be able to call it quits when life has dragged on too long? When there is nothing to gain and much to lose from an ongoing existence?

  The operative phrase in the above passage is, of course, “emotionally sound.” All too often, elderly people resort to suicide because they are in the grip not of intractable physical pain but treatable emotional suffering. As Sherwin B. Nuland puts it in his invaluable book, How We Die:

  A very large propo
rtion of the elderly men and women who kill themselves do it because they suffer from quite remediable depression. With proper medication and therapy, most of them would be relieved of the cloud of oppressive despair that colors all reason gray, would then realize that the edifice topples not quite so much as thought, and that hope of relief is less hopeless than it seemed. I have more than once seen a suicidal old person emerge from depression, and rediscovered thereby a vibrant friend.

  Even Nuland, however, while insisting that “taking one’s own life is almost always the wrong thing to do,” concedes that “there are two circumstances in which that may not be so”: the “unendurable infirmities of a crippling old age and the final devastations of a terminal disease.” He cautions, however, that taking such an extreme measure demands “consultation, counsel, and the leavening influence of a long period of mature thought.”

  Gerontologist Andrea Sankar, author of Dying at Home, concurs with Nuland and offers three specific recommendations for terminally ill patients who are tempted to end their own lives: (1) “If uncontrolled pain is the reason for considering suicide, have the pain evaluated by a hospice physician and nurse…. Pain control should be possible to achieve with the help of an appropriately trained professional;” (2) “If the desire is to spare the family the burden of caregiving, allow family members to express themselves about this. They may wish to provide care for the dying in recognition of their love for that person;” and (3) “Seek professional counseling. The dying person may be depressed and afraid. Professional counseling may help the patient deal with these emotions and go on to live out the rest of his or her life.”

  Since Oregon is the only state in the United States that permits physician-assisted suicide, elderly people who remain intent on ending it all have to figure out a way to do it themselves. Information is published by the Hemlock Society (www.compassionandchoices.org/hemlock), founded by Derek Humphrey, whose 1991 book, Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying, is the bible of the right-to-die movement.

  Famous Last Words

  There’s a widespread notion that a dying person’s final words will hold some special significance—that with his last breath he will offer some blazing insight into the mystery of existence (“Yes, I see it now—life really is a bowl of cherries”), a dramatic deathbed confession (“I did it—I kidnapped the Lindbergh baby”), or ultimate affirmation of faith that starkly contrasts with his former skepticism (“Now that I think about it, maybe organized religion isn’t so bad after all”).

  Rarely, however, do farewell utterances meet these high expectations. Considering how many people have died since the invention of writing, the number of memorable last words on record is pathetically small. Check out the many collections of famous last words and you’ll find the same old chestnuts repeated again and again: “Goodnight my darlings, I’ll see you tomorrow” (Noël Coward); “If this is dying, then I don’t think much of it” (Lytton Strachey); “I just had eighteen straight whiskeys. I think that’s a record” (Dylan Thomas); “I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room—and God damn it—died in a hotel room” (Eugene O’Neill); and a few dozen more.

  Moreover, even many of these statements are of dubious authenticity Take the last words reputedly spoken in 1920 by the young Notre Dame halfback George Gipp. As he lay in the hospital, dying of pneumonia, he supposedly murmured these immortal words to his coach, Knute Rockne, who later used them to inspire his team in a legendary locker room speech: “Tell them to go out and win one for the Gipper.” Since Rockne apparently never visited Gipp during the latter’s dying days, however—and since Gipp was never known to his teammates or anyone else as “the Gipper”—it seems unlikely that the famous quote was ever uttered.

  Like Gipp’s apocryphal exhortation, some famous farewell remarks were clearly fabricated out of whole cloth. Others were emended by friends of the deceased—polished and turned into snappy one-liners. And then there are those frequently anthologized “famous last words” that don’t qualify for other reasons. It’s a rare collection, for example, that doesn’t include Oscar Wilde’s supposedly final witticism: “I am in a duel to the death with this wallpaper. One of us must go.” As it happens, this bon mot was uttered a month before Wilde’s death in November 1900. So unless he remained mute for the last thirty days of his life, it’s hard to see how this statement qualifies as his “famous last words.”

  Among other famous parting statements that invariably make it into the anthologies (and whose validity is open to question) are:

  “How were the circus receipts today at Madison Square Garden?” (P. T. Barnum)

  “I am about to—or I am going to—die. Either expression is correct.” (French grammarian Dominique Bouhours)

  “I’ve had a hell of a lot of fun, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.” (Errol Flynn)

  “Turn up the lights. I don’t want to go home in the dark.” (O. Henry)

  “All my possessions for a moment of time.” (Queen Elizabeth I)

  “I have taken an unconscionable time dying, but I hope you will excuse it.” (King Charles II)

  “Well, it will be a new experience anyway.” (George Bernard Shaw)

  “They tell me I am going to get well, but I file a dissenting opinion.” (Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo) “I’ve never felt better.” (Douglas Fairbanks) “There’s fun in the air!” (Maurice Chevalier)

  “I shall hear in heaven!” (Ludwig van Beethoven)

  “Die, my dear doctor? That’s the last thing I shall do.” (British prime minister Henry John Temple)

  There are other famous last words that have the ring of authenticity:

  “Why am I hemorrhaging?” (Boris Pasternak)

  “God damn.” (James Thurber)

  “I want my lunch!” (J. Paul Getty)

  “Water!” (Ulysses S. Grant)

  “It wasn’t worth it.” (Louis B. Mayer)

  “I have a terrific headache.” (Franklin Delano Roosevelt)

  “Goddamn the whole friggin’ world and everyone in it.” (W. C. Fields)

  “Good night.” (Lord George Gordon Byron)

  RECOMMENDED READING

  You will find all these famous last words and hundreds more in the following collections: Alan Bisbort, Last Words: Apt Observations, Pleas, Curses, Benedictions, Sour Notes, Bon Mots, and Insights from People on the Brink of Departure (Pomegranate, 2001); Jonathan Green, Famous Last Words (Prion, 2002); Kathleen E. Miller, Last Laughs: Funny Tombstone Quotes and Famous Last Words (Sterling, 2006); Ray Robinson, Famous Last Words: Fond Farewells, Deathbed Diatribes, and Exclamations upon Expiration (Workman, 2003); Bernard C. Ruffin, Last Words: A Dictionary of Deathbed Quotations (MacFarland, 1995); Laura Ward, Famous Last Words: The Ultimate Collection of Finales and Farewells (PRC, 2004). You can also find many memorable farewells online at the “Last Word Browser” (www.alsirat.com/lastwords/index.html).

  FAMOUS LAST WORDS: HELPFUL TIPS

  If you’re determined to go out with a memorable line, here are a few useful things to remember:

  1. Generally speaking, when people are on the brink of death, they don’t have the presence of mind to come up with pithy observations. Most final utterances are on the order of incomprehensible gurgles or urgent requests for another shot of morphine. For that reason, you’ll probably want to compose your dying statement while you still have your wits about you and spend some time rehearsing it so that you sound spontaneous when you finally get around to delivering it.

  2. Avoid speaking your last words in a language no one around you understands. (That’s what happened to Albert Einstein, who uttered his final words of wisdom in German. Unfortunately, he died in New Jersey, and the only person who heard him was his American nurse, who had no idea what he was saying.)

  3. Don’t wait too long to speak. You don’t want to suffer the embarrassment of expiring halfway through your carefully memorized parting pronouncement.

  4. Oh, and one more
thing—once you utter your last words, make sure not to say anything else like “Boy, am I thirsty” or “It sure is getting dark in here.” Otherwise, you’ll have gone to all that trouble for nothing.

  Burial: It’s Only Human

  The moment is familiar from countless Hollywood westerns. A few badly outnumbered cowpokes are in desperate flight from a bunch of pursuing baddies. One of the good guys gets wounded and dies. Though time is of the essence, his companions refuse to go on until the deceased is given a “proper Christian burial”: a hastily dug grave on the prairie, a rough-hewn marker, a few words spoken over the body.

  And it’s not just in movies that such scenarios are found. Along with love, war, and other epic themes of literature, burial has served as a subject for great works of art. The most wrenching episode in the Iliad occurs when the elderly King Priam sneaks into the enemy camp to beg for the return of his slain son, Hector, whose body has been denied a proper disposal by the vengeful Achilles. And the entire tragic action of Sophocles’s Antigone hinges on the title character’s determination to have her dead brother decently interred.

  As these examples suggest, the need to provide our friends and relations with a fitting burial is a defining human trait, one of the things that distinguishes us from animals. (Even elephants—who supposedly go to die in “graveyards”—don’t bury their dead.) The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that the souls of the unburied were barred from the afterlife. For the Jews of biblical times, an unburied corpse was an abomination, as the prophet Jeremiah makes clear when he calls down a curse upon the enemies of his people: “They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth; and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.”