I've always been attracted, I don't know why, to stories of people facing their own end with a calm demeanor and in accordance with their life-long habits and values. I suppose philosophers are the leading source, and Socrates the great original, but I have a possibly carping complaint about the Platonic dialogues describing his death. Didn't Socrates say that "a wisdom full of pranks" describes "the best state of man"? Yet at his end all is grave and somber and "philosophical," at least in Plato's telling. I prefer the example of David Hume, the British philosopher known in his day as "The Great Infidel," who while dying of cancer in 1776 received a social call from the pious James Boswell. It seems to have been Boswell's plan to discover Hume's views altered by the prospect of death, in which case he (Boswell) would then produce a work of journalism describing the "conversion" of a notorious heretic, a popular genre. But instead he discovered Hume composed, sanguine, witty as ever, and merrily unrepentant of his skeptical views. You can if you want read of the interview here. As George Sherburn observed, "the calm cheerfulness of [Hume's] demise . . . greatly annoyed the orthodox."
But there are also the examples of people who will never make it into Wikipedia. Back in my working days, there once came across my desk the "probate package" of a recent decedent. His Last Will & Testament was handwritten on lined paper that had been torn out of a spiral notebook, and I could see from his death certificate that it had been drafted and notarized about a week before he died. One of the provisions read, "I leave to my ex-wife, Karen, the sum of $5 (five dollars) in recognition of how much love and assistance she gave me over the years." If memory serves, his estate was not negligible--he owned a paid-for house in northeast Minneapolis and had a total of about a half million cash on deposit in different banks. Another provision set aside the sum of $400 "for booze at my wake." Maybe Karen has a different story but I like him.
I've also enjoyed the recent steady trickle of reports from palliative care centers, emergency rooms, etc., describing scenes like the one in this tweet from Benjamin Wittes. For those not inclined to click on the link, a World War II vet, well into his 90s, is rushed to the hospital, where, after being examined, he's told there is nothing that can be done for him and his demise is imminent. "Shit," he replies, "I'm not gonna see the Mueller report, am I?"
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