SUICIDE AND EULOGIES

CONTEMPLATING SUICIDE

Eight of us, three age 70+, two age 80+, the presenter, my wife and I in our 60’s, sat together. We know one another as a Unitarian Universalist & Quaker church service. It’s not a particularly religious group. After a half-hour of Quaker-style silent worship, then a coffee break, we heard a presentation about “Compassion and Choices”, a Colorado advocacy group working on a law enabling physician assisted suicide, modeled on an Oregon law.

The presenter asked us to share: did we know anyone who took their own life? What were our thoughts about our own death?

     One woman said her brother, severely ill and not expected to live, died with his sons around. Was it suicide? She did not know. He may have collected pills. For herself, when that time came, and she was aware of her impending death, she said she might just walk into the woods.

     Me. I said my father, suffering with severe bladder cancer, refused chemo-therapy because years ago it was so excruciating. It took weeks, but he died and the death certificate said “pneumonia.”  I said I wanted people’s thoughts about the spiritual aspect of suicide, I thought it was not without consequence. And, I asked, are we, today, afraid to suffer?

     An older man said he and his wife had DNR documents. They wanted no extraordinary measures.

     An older woman described in detail how she has planned her death. She has a pistol. A friend and she have both discussed this at length. She is matter of fact. Pragmatic. She only wishes to be outside so that it does not make a mess for someone else to clean up.

     A medical doctor, choked with emotions, tearfully passed after saying he was a scientist.

     My wife went ahead, said she believes in reincarnation and that we choose our lives, from birth to death. She has worked with people physically and mentally disabled from birth. They bear their disability with grace. It is who they are. They accept joy when it comes. How we die can be a gift just like how other folk live.

     The medical doctor, now composed, said this is all about brain chemistry. If his brain chemistry is balanced, he might not want to die. If his brain chemistry is out of whack, he might be unaware of this and do something rash. His father is 97 and his mother 95, both are still living. They sometimes think the other has lived too long, is suffering, and may want to die. He is unsure.

     Another said that when you die you are like an animal. There is no soul. No spirit. No one has ever come back from the grave to prove it to her. So, she says, you go into the ground, and that’s it. She would be in favor of physician assisted suicide.

     And, the final voice was our facilitator who brought “Compassion and Choice”. She told a story about a young woman diagnosed with incurable ALS. There was no mention of contemplation of suicide at a young age, instead she chose, consciously, to live a determined life as full and rich for as long as possible. She died in her 60s when her respirator unit failed.

     We ended our session with a group hug, squeezing tightly together in a circle with our arms around each other’s shoulders.

CONTEMPLATING EULOGIES

A book chose me that afternoon. At the public library book sale (final day $7 a bag) I picked up book entitled “The Book of Eulogies”* by Phyllis Thereaux. Perhaps the sale of still living older works who have reached some sort of “sell by date” or “cull by date” is also a kind of a librarian assisted suicide for a book.

     Thereaux says that eulogies are “funeral praise”, and the form is perhaps the least valued of our literary forms. Eulogies are usually practiced by amateurs. When someone dies, it is customary for a friend or relative to “say a few words.” Many feel at a loss, pressured, inadequate. Many times I have seen family defer to a clergy person who may only know the deceased vaguely and then offer “words of comfort” or scripture quotes, but does not praise. Those words could be for anyone.

     I recently was with a 92 year old friend whose grandson had died suddenly a few days before we met, and he had been asked to “say a few words” at the young man’s funeral. He read a letter which the boy had written him not long before. It seemed a bridge to the life of the young man, what was on his mind and in his heart. It was filled with his living-ness.

     The “few words” of a genuine eulogy are elastic. They stretch between us the living and the dead. Perhaps it is the magical power of words which live between the living and the dead, a spiritual power. Even the exquisite eulogies which Thereaux includes in her compendium are possibly a means of putting the reader into the presence of the dead great people dead for centuries now. And, perhaps the dead appreciate it because, as she says, they are never too busy.

     Genuine eulogies can bring the deceased and the eulogizer into focus because both are present, both are in the words, in the moment, giving and receiving. Death has passed by but something is living. By rubbing memories together, a flame is ignited.

THE SECRET OF WHO WE ARE

What about us as eulogists? The eulogist seems to pass easily back and forth between themselves and the dead. It is probable that the curtain between themselves and the dead become quite thin as they are writing and then may vanish all together. Does the eulogist then become as if dead themselves?

     Perhaps this is the power of the words in which the dead are living. What memories do you rub together? What do you say about this dead person?  Do you mediate upon friendship – what they meant to you? Seems like your story not theirs. Do you know their story? Can you know their story? Their deep backstory? Will you lapse into some philosophical rumination actually about yourself? Remind them, one more time before they depart about their failures? Will you apologize to the audience and sentimentally state how the dead tried, really tried?

     In some eulogies I have read, the deceased is barely mentioned!  In others, their physicality is described in detail: their trembling eyes, their smile, their voice, their coloring, their physique, their diet. In others it is metaphor: deep like lakes, oceans; lofty like clouds, sky; solid like hills, vast expanses, rare flowers, or a stream.

     The most powerful eulogies seem to be about the secrets the dead reveal, the gifts they give the living through their death. Mainly they point not to the past, but to the future.

It is not odd that a humorist can sees more deeply into the depths of human heart than others.  The humorist, Erma Bombeck (1927-1996,) wrote a Mother’s Day column entitled “Mothers Who Have Lost A Child”, one of the most often reprinted: 

“When I was writing my book I Want To Grow Hair, I Want To Grow Up, I Want To Go To Boise, I talked with mothers who had lost a child to cancer. Every single one said death gave their lives new meaning and purpose. And, who do you think prepared them for the rough, lonely road they had to travel? Their dying child. They pointed their mothers toward the future and told them to keep going. The children had already accepted what their mothers were fighting to reject.” BOOK OF EULOGIES, p.343.

     My friends at the meeting opened their hearts a bit and revealed something secret. The conversation about death seemed a gift which made us more alive to one another in a deeper way. A group of elders standing in front of a holy force, unsure, afraid, and vulnerable. Human.

© Copyright 2016, Jean W. Yeager

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THE BOOK OF EULOGIES, Phyllis Thereaux, Scribner, 1997

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FIVE WORDS FOR FREE

WHO AM I?

When I was a younger man, I used to write comedy for a living. No joke. I know that may seem hard to believe because of the nature of this blog which is not especially drop-dead humorous. But, when you’re a 30-something many people in general, and many writers in particular, are more bright and sparkling in their wit. But, as life goes on, and crises mount, we become more life-weary. Some of our country’s greatest comics spun the tragedy of their lives into humor. Robin Williams was brilliant and always edgy, right to the end. Then the pendulum of aging and fear of the future swings toward us and bearing up under the changes takes the edge off our joy.

I never was a comic. I wrote funny but am not a wit. Not witless, just not quick. Many of you are probably spontaneously funny. I have a 20-second delay between the moment in which a witticism is called for and the moment if finally dawns on me what to wisecrack. I’m a “wise-gap” guy filling moments with awkward silence, watching opportunities for quips and puns sail away. Where friends fill the air and pepper each other with “toppers”. Even “Silent Cal” Cooledge, Vermont’s first President, was more of a quipster than I seem to be. A woman told him she had made a bet she could get him to say more than five words. Calvin said: “You lose.”

Perhaps I’m more like Kipling. I like a good set-up.

They tell a story about Kipling who lived in Vermont at the height of his career. Kipling was paid £1 per word – an extraordinary amount at that time. A boys’ school collected 1-Pence from each of 100 students and sent Kipling £1 bill with the following note: “Dear Mr. Kipling, We hear you get £1 per word. Here is £1, please send us your best word.” Kipling responded with a note which read: “Thanks.”

     Jokes and brief sketches aim at a punchline. A payoff. A “snapper” as we used to call it. The term “punchline” comes from the “Punch and Judy” puppet shows of the medieval era – two puppets who would say witty things and smack each other around. I used to collect jokes for use in corporate speeches. But a punchline is nearly meaningless without the set-up. Here are a few of my favorite punchlines: “I don’t want a giant teddy bear, I want a crunchy little pie!” Or, “Shoot the dog.” Or, this one: “...does this look like yours? And she hit me in the throat with a 2-wood.” See? Punchlines need a set-up.

     The set-up. Our lives are our set-ups. Like an extended sketch scene, our lives go between “beats” of dull periods, a build, and a pay-off. Rinse and repeat. There are only two archetypal structures for sketch humor: a “normal” person in an odd, bizarre, ironic or absurd situation; OR a bizarre, ionic, or absurd person in a “normal” situation.

     My life is tediously ordinary most of the time – like lives of transcontinental jet pilots - hours of boring normality interrupted by moments of crisis. Some lives are dark struggles to pay the bills, stay well, get well, do laundry, care for others interrupted by moments of humor, and thank God for the “comic relief”.

WHY AM I HERE?

Humor is in our lives to lighten us up, balance our seriousness, bring us levity, counteract gravity. It’s like a pendulum that swings back and forth bringing balance. There are so many serious people in life, so many serious situations. In those times, humor is available to us to heal the sadness.

I had a friend, an older guy named Bert, who was a dentist. Bert liked to ease the jitters of his patients by being amusing. He was really a very funny man and could crack us up with jokes, and witticisms and puns – especially puns. Burt could not tell his patients real jokes, because they couldn’t laugh with his tools in their mouths. So, he would be kind, sweet and amusing and pun a great deal. It set his patients at ease. Most of us are like Bert. We want to be pleasant. When Bert passed away, we got an announcement of his memorial service and I busted up laughing. We went to the memorial and I asked his wife if Bert had planned the time of the gathering before he died. “No... why do you ask?” “Because it is scheduled for 2:30. Bert is probably giggling that his memorial is at “tooth-hurty” I said.” A slow grin arose on her face, the Being of Humor and Bert caused this seeming “coincidence”.

     The spiritual Being of Humor stands between our pompous, sense of self-importance, our desire to be perfect, happy and healthy; and the part of our psyche which is enslaved by the gravity, suffering and reality of our situations, our lacks, defaults, illnesses; the realization that no matter how great we think we are, there is a punch line at the end of our life, a payoff, one of Shakespeare’s gravediggers and death. So, we live our lives running between our smart self, and our less-wise self. Even thinking about the reality of all that is sobering, or worse. Our sense of humor swings between the two, this pendulum helps us not get stuck at either end.

Life is not easy. There is suffering. Humor gives a certain lifting and moments of fun to “grin and bear it.” I think they call this ability to find balance, integrity. Living that life for which you have skills and talents and living it the best you can. Not taking yourself too seriously. Being able to have the realization that when you fall short, some insensitive friend will inevitably be there to point out your failure. This is a sometimes painful “gift” and reminds us not to take ourselves too seriously.

WHAT DO I WANT?

The inevitability of the failure, the darkness, calls forth the light. The gravity makes us long for levity.

A rare person is one who believes that somehow they can very quickly create a different situation instantly on the spot, in the midst of crisis. Swinging this pendulum of humor even in desperate situations is possible, IF you are able to be objective and independent in the moment of tragedy. Otherwise, without the capacity to pull yourself out of the moment and stand back, it may be impossible to change the set-up and the pay-off and the reality.

     Once, when I was a part of a writing team, were creating humor for our boss, Bob Stanford. Bob was “Mr. Seveneleben”, a legendary advertising genius and head of the 7-Eleven in-house ad agency. Our writing staff had written humorous sketches for the annual 7-Eleven Sales Meeting. We were in the recording studio and Bob was recording our scripts... which he was finding less than funny. Finally, in anger, he took our scripts and threw them into the air. Then he pointed to we writers and said, “You, you writers, come in here NOW!” We did. He lined us up single file, got a legal pad and a pencil and pointed at the first guy and said, “You, be funny NOW!”

     All funny thoughts immediately were seen flying out of each of our heads.

     The first writer said, “Uh, I can’t think of anything, Bob.” Bob glared and pointed at the second. “You. You’re allegedly one of my writers, now say something funny!” “I got nothing, boss.”

     Bob was seething with every hang-dog apology. I wanted to mumble something about my in-built 20-second delay, my “wise-gap”, but why state the obvious. I stared at my shoes.

     And so it went until we came to the last guy, Mark James, my boss, our Creative Director who brightly said, with considerable performance animation, “Okay boss, here’s the set-up.”

“The head of an ad agency calls his writers into his office  and says to them, ’Be Funny NOW!’ And the only thing you hear is...” and here Mark LOUDLY clapped his hands “... the sound of their tuckuses slamming shut!”

Bob sat in silence and then slowly grinned.

     Mark saved our tuckuses.

     And, life is like that. One moment crisis, and the next, if you’re bright and clever like Mark, you use humor to move the situation and the pendulum swings. The question for us all is, can you be as creative in the moment as Mark was then? And if you can’t? Well, life gets grim and then you die.

     But, hey! Look on the bright side! Even then, even after you’re dead, the Being of Humor will embrace your friends and family and the pendulum will continue to swing. After all, humor is a spiritual being which inspires us to do a very human thing – to laugh. And, laughter is a very human thing. Laughter brings balance and healing.

     There’s an old gag about a woman named Lena whose husband Ole has died. They’ve been married a long, long time and living in this very small village. So, Lena calls the local newspaper to report Ole’s death and ask for an obituary to be published. The editor says that an obit costs $25-bucks, but she can have five words for free.

     Lena says that to the editor that everybody knows Ole and is well aware that he and Lena have been married such a very long time. So, she says that she thinks that five words is probably enough to say the important stuff. “Okay, what do you want to say?” asks the editor.

     “Ole died. Boat for sale.”

© Copyright 2016, Jean W. Yeager

All Rights Reserved

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