Something Thoughtful

  Nicholas Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree or disagree with him.                 

                   DO NOT GO FAKING INTO THAT LONG NIGHT

A few weeks ago I saw an editorial that gave me great heart. It confirmed something I have long believed, to wit, never use dishonest euphemisms when you can say, without offence, the honest and simple truth.  The editorial was a commonsensical “Up Front” piece published in the NZ Listener, 14 January this year. It was written by a woman who has worked in hospices and who knows about the stages of dying. Her argument was that it is much better, for the health of the bereaved, to say that somebody has died rather than to use sugared words. The bereaved will adjust more easily to their loss if they are able to confront as early as possible the fact of death.

There have always been poetic or sweetened ways if saying that someone has died. “Shuffled off this mortal coil”. “Gone west”. “Gone to a better place”. People who used such phrases often did so with the best of intentions and were doubtlessly attempting to give the bereaved comfort. But euphemism has, in recent years, got out of hand. The phrase “passed away” has long been used. But in just the last few years, it has been abridged to “passed”; and as often as the broadcast news tells us that some eminent has died, so often are we told that the same person has merely “passed”. Passed by what? Passed my front door? Passed the shop down the street? Passed water? Passed wind? It is a ludicrous way of referring to death. Eminent person XYZ has not “passed”. Eminent person XYZ has died.

None of this is a counsel of rudeness. There have always been as many crass and comical way of referring to death as there have been euphemisms. “Kicked the bucket”. “Pushing up daisies” etc. Most such jocular talk has a bravado tone to it, as if the speaker wants to prove that he-or-she is not afraid of death. To ask for avoidance of euphemisms is not an invitation to refer to bereavement in a crass and hurtful way. There may be some delicate people who require the soft euphemisms before they can accept the reality of death.

All this holds true whether you are a religious person or an agnostic or an atheist – whether you believe in an afterlife or whether you believe that death is complete finality for any human being. Get used to saying she died, he died, they died. It is the reality, whatever outlook you have.

FOOTNOTE: After writing and then posting this very brief reflection, I noticed in the following issue of the Listener that a number of letters-to-the-editor fully endorsed the "Up Front" editorial. Very good to see sanity being expressed.