At one of the churches I served, I led a class entitled, “Living Fully, Dying Well.” It encouraged participants to learn about and share their views on . . . Death. I first asked the group of mostly parents, ranging in age from 30s to 70s: “Did you ever have a talk with your kids about sex?”
A few had toddlers, and that talk was years away. A few never had kids: no need for the talk. But the majority, recently or decades before, raised their hands to acknowledge covering that subject with their kids.
“What about death?”
They stared at me.
“Have you told your children about what your thoughts are about death? About anything having to do with your wishes if you get a terminal illness, or what you want if you can’t make decisions?”
Maybe one or two hands were lifted. Most of the group had not chatted about—or hinted at—dying and death, even with their adult children. Hey, we even avoid speaking the word out loud. Our culture has created—and frequently uses—dozens of banal to bizarre euphemisms to give death as wide a berth as possible.
Crossed the Jordan
Deep-sixed
Departed
Dearly departed
Dreamless sleep
Entered the pearly gates
Expired
Gave up the ghost
Gone
Had the last curtain call
Kicked the bucket
Laid to rest
Left the room like Elvis
Left us
Met Davy Jones
Met her maker
Passed
Passed on
Passed over
Perished
Returned to dust
Shook hands with Jesus
Six feet under
Sleeps with the fishes
Succumbed
Surrendered
Taken by angels
Taken by God
Taken up to heaven
The big sleep
Time ran out
Was lost
Went home to God
Can you think of phrases or words I’m missing? I suspect you could, and I haven’t searched for what the Bulgarians or Bolivians or Brazilians might say. I’m quite confident other words from other regions, cultures, and religions would quickly expand the list.
Not long before the Covid pandemic began, I purchased a new car. The smiling, chatty car salesperson eventually shifted to the endless required forms as our negotiations turned into a deal. One of the questions he had to ask was, “Where do you work?”
I told him.
A hospice.
He nodded. He asked several more formal questions. He jotted information on the papers in front of him. Then he paused and stared at me.
“So, with where you work, what do you say to people who are, you know . . .”
His incomplete sentence hung in the air.
“Say about what?” I asked.
“Well, if they are . . .” He gazed past me. “When they are . . .”
More sentences faded into silence.
I guessed him around thirty. He had mentioned a fiancée, and had briefly spoken about a passion for mixed martial arts. He seemed a nice, young man. But he couldn’t get the words dying or death out of his mouth.
At the hospice where I worked in grief support, I listened to the nurses and social workers discuss death. I read the medical charts and the notes doctors made. I’m not breaching confidence by revealing that the professionals and their official charting also avoided death. Variations of the patient passed were popular with my colleagues. I get it. I understand passed on or passed over reflect the faith traditions of earth and heaven, of passing from the known land of fast food, area codes and cloverleaf freeway exchanges to the Biblical dream of paradise.
Or it’s possible the professionals simply don’t want to overuse the inevitable word, “died.”
Or maybe they are uncomfortable too?
When making hospice bereavement calls to family and friends, I usually said death or died. I prefer the truest and simplest words when in conversation with a grieving loved one because maybe, just maybe, my choice of words will model honesty for our private time on the phone. But whatever words I speak—or whatever words I avoid for my so-called honest attempts at honesty—death will enter my life and break me down. It will. Once, how breathtakingly fast and cruel that my mother changed from being a lively octogenarian to breathing her last. I recall early 2014, when my wife and I had four fun pets: three snippy cats and an easy-going dog. Sure, they were elderly, but they were a fixture in our lives. By October 2014, all four had died. That year staggered me.
It would be easy—and yet nearly impossible—to create the short list of the deaths of my friends or family whose death would also devastate me. It is like that for most of us.
And so, we use words to avoid the unavoidable. How many of us are like my car dealer, a nice young fellow with a bright smile and a brighter future. He seemed as if he could talk about anything to anyone. Except for one subject . . .
Still, words are all we’ve got, and I hope you’ll be honest with your loved ones about what you want in your dying and in your death while you’re still a citizen of this known land of fast food, area codes, and people that love you more than life itself.
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My book, A Companion for the Hospice Journey, is available at Amazon.
Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash