The humorist Art Buchwald died on Thursday, having spent the last year of his life wisecracking about his impending death – often live on television. “I hope I see you next week,” he told George Stephanopoulos of ABC’s This Week on March 12, 2006. “We’ll say, ‘Something’s wrong with the camera – he’s still going!’”
But Art Buchwald cracked more than jokes as he died – he also put a few more cracks in a crumbling cultural consensus about how we should prepare for death.
The death-watch began last January when Buchwald made the unorthodox decision to forego the kidney dialysis that his doctors told him could prolong his life. “It was a tough decision,” he told Diane Rehm of National Public Radio that same month. “But I don’t want pain. I don’t want to be kept alive for the sake of living. I don’t want Alzheimer’s. I don’t want cancer.” And he added: “I’m very happy with my choices.”
Even more striking was the emotional posture that Mr. Buchwald assumed after making his decision. As he put it in a March 7, 2006 column printed in newspapers across the country, “I’m having a swell time – the time of my life.”
Art Buchwald gained national attention and admiration because he was not doing what most Americans presumed that dying people do. Our common expectations for the dying are largely shaped by the work of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, whose landmark 1969 book, On Death and Dying, observed that most who are terminally ill need to work through a number of emotional stages – denial, anger, bargaining and depression – to overcome their fear of death. Eventually, Kübler-Ross suggested, the dying reach a final stage called “acceptance.”
In recent decades Kübler-Ross (who died in 2004) and her many protégés have added great nuance to her early work. Still, the talk of “stages” became enshrined in the popular consciousness as a kind of universal code. Most Americans simply assume that the fear of death is a necessary point of departure for those faced with a terminal diagnosis. And most assume that the journey to death will be marked inevitably by great emotional anguish. These assumptions can’t account for an important minority of people – people like Art Buchwald.
As anyone who works with the dying can attest, some people have come to grips with their own mortality long before they face imminent death. Some even feel oddly liberated by the prospect of dying, “freed up” to exercise in unique – sometimes spectacular – ways the same gifts of love and laughter and concern for others that have always made them who they are.
This way of dying is nothing new. Across the history of western civilization inspiring deaths have been celebrated in both oral tradition and in literature of every imaginable kind – from children’s books to popular magazines to religious anthologies. Our ancestors loved to tell the stories of what they called “good deaths” or “happy deaths,” deaths in which the person dying enjoyed profound experiences of grace and succeeded in communicating this grace to others. They believed these uplifting tales from the deathbed could inspire those who lived on to consider more deeply all that is good in life.
Perhaps the attention paid to Art Buchwald across the last year of his life is a sign that we are ready to reclaim this more mature way of thinking about death and dying. The continuing spread of the hospice movement, coupled with advances in the medical practice of palliative care, hold out hope that more and more Americans will be able to exercise greater control over the physical and emotional processes of dying. Instead of focusing on the ways that “most people” die, we would be wise to pay more attention, as our ancestors did, to that minority of people who finish their lives exceptionally well.
So here’s an early nomination for the Best Death of the 21st Century: Art Buchwald. By embracing his own death with such remarkable good humor, Mr. Buchwald reminded us of two ancient truths: death isn’t always such a terrible thing; and ordinary people can be an inspiration to others as they die.
But Art Buchwald cracked more than jokes as he died – he also put a few more cracks in a crumbling cultural consensus about how we should prepare for death.
The death-watch began last January when Buchwald made the unorthodox decision to forego the kidney dialysis that his doctors told him could prolong his life. “It was a tough decision,” he told Diane Rehm of National Public Radio that same month. “But I don’t want pain. I don’t want to be kept alive for the sake of living. I don’t want Alzheimer’s. I don’t want cancer.” And he added: “I’m very happy with my choices.”
Even more striking was the emotional posture that Mr. Buchwald assumed after making his decision. As he put it in a March 7, 2006 column printed in newspapers across the country, “I’m having a swell time – the time of my life.”
Art Buchwald gained national attention and admiration because he was not doing what most Americans presumed that dying people do. Our common expectations for the dying are largely shaped by the work of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, whose landmark 1969 book, On Death and Dying, observed that most who are terminally ill need to work through a number of emotional stages – denial, anger, bargaining and depression – to overcome their fear of death. Eventually, Kübler-Ross suggested, the dying reach a final stage called “acceptance.”
In recent decades Kübler-Ross (who died in 2004) and her many protégés have added great nuance to her early work. Still, the talk of “stages” became enshrined in the popular consciousness as a kind of universal code. Most Americans simply assume that the fear of death is a necessary point of departure for those faced with a terminal diagnosis. And most assume that the journey to death will be marked inevitably by great emotional anguish. These assumptions can’t account for an important minority of people – people like Art Buchwald.
As anyone who works with the dying can attest, some people have come to grips with their own mortality long before they face imminent death. Some even feel oddly liberated by the prospect of dying, “freed up” to exercise in unique – sometimes spectacular – ways the same gifts of love and laughter and concern for others that have always made them who they are.
This way of dying is nothing new. Across the history of western civilization inspiring deaths have been celebrated in both oral tradition and in literature of every imaginable kind – from children’s books to popular magazines to religious anthologies. Our ancestors loved to tell the stories of what they called “good deaths” or “happy deaths,” deaths in which the person dying enjoyed profound experiences of grace and succeeded in communicating this grace to others. They believed these uplifting tales from the deathbed could inspire those who lived on to consider more deeply all that is good in life.
Perhaps the attention paid to Art Buchwald across the last year of his life is a sign that we are ready to reclaim this more mature way of thinking about death and dying. The continuing spread of the hospice movement, coupled with advances in the medical practice of palliative care, hold out hope that more and more Americans will be able to exercise greater control over the physical and emotional processes of dying. Instead of focusing on the ways that “most people” die, we would be wise to pay more attention, as our ancestors did, to that minority of people who finish their lives exceptionally well.
So here’s an early nomination for the Best Death of the 21st Century: Art Buchwald. By embracing his own death with such remarkable good humor, Mr. Buchwald reminded us of two ancient truths: death isn’t always such a terrible thing; and ordinary people can be an inspiration to others as they die.
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