A tale of two gents.
When I was doing my training, back in the 18th century (well, that's how it feels now), I went with my mentor to visit a family. A gent had died who was well into his nineties and had lived a good, full life. He had enjoyed good health for most of his many years; his final illness had been sudden and short.
His daughter was (understandably) very upset, as her dad still had so many things that he wanted to do.
After that visit, I came to the conclusion that it's better to die while you're still living and still have plans and enthusiasm, rather than after a lot of suffering.
This week, I met the family of another gent. Again, he was a good age and had lived a contented life. But for the last two years he's been unwell and unhappy. The loss of independence caused by his illness was difficult for him to bear and he was simply waiting for it all to end.
Death is inevitable and in both cases I think we could conclude, given the ages of the gents involved, that these are sad, rather than tragic circumstances. But the question in the title of my post comes from the feelings of the families in the two cases.
The daughter of the first gent, despite her father's great age, still felt angry and cheated. Yes, these are normal and expected grief reactions, particularly in the case of an unexpected death, but there was that feeling that Dad had somehow been cut off in his prime.
The sister of the second gent was much calmer, possibly even relieved. The prevailing sentiments were "it was time" and "he was ready to go".
So when is a good time to die? Well, obviously, at the age of 150, while asleep, after a good meal, some fine wine, and any other....pleasures.
But to be serious, this is another question without an answer; there are no rights or wrongs, no easy or hard solutions. The reactions above may have had as much to do with the relationships as the circumstances, but as much as we all say "I want to go while I'm having fun", those left behind would nearly always like a little more notice, and a bit more of a feeling that the right thing has happened.
Keep well, all.
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3 comments:
Very interesting, XP. I reckon most of us have an inbuilt expectation about longevity - the "two score and ten," natural span stuff. So even if a younger ex-person (let's say, a vivacious 64 years)has had a wonderful life, much better than a miserable self-centred old ex-git who dies at 85 (I mean someone who's always been self-centred and miserable, not just because they've got arthritis now and some tinnitus!) we feel cheated about the death of the former, whereas the latter is easier to take.
Arguably, if we faced death more directly,carried it in our lives, we could mourn for the old git more than the younger person, because a life less fulfilled is surely sadder than a life well lived, however long? It's a cliche that we often mourn for what wasn't as well as what was.
People sometimes say "there is never a good time to go." I know from talking to people that this isn't always true, as your second family show us.But maybe your first example shows us that whilst we ourselves might like to go whilst we've still got a bit of zip, it's easier for those close to us if there's a sense of "time to go," "had enough of this" etc. when we pop off. Notice, indeed!
Imponderables. "Ripeness is all," but it's a continuous movement from ripe to rotten, so tricky to find the right moment, even given a choice!
Ripeness is all. I guess it's suddenness that peple find most difficult. My fear is that greater longevity, and the commitment of medics to add years to the wrong ends of our lives will mean that the blessed release death is going to become more an more common -- a little bit of notice and then some!
A little bit of notice and then some, or sometimes too much, for the elderly person if not the family too. Hence, I suppose, the surge of interest in assisted suicides, medical ethics debates around sustaining life beyond its value to the ill and elderly, Martin Amis' outburst back a bit prophesying suicide booths to help us avoid a "silver tsunami" (his terms not mine)of the old and only barely alive, or unbearably alive, perhaps.
Both Hindus and Jains traditionally had a recognised rite to allow those for whom life was becoming unbearable to fast themselves to death. Was it an oppressive way of divesting society of elderly dependants, or a mercful release for a tiny minority of the suitably devout?
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