I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground -- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Dirge Without Music BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind: Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned. Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you. Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust. A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew, A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost. The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,— They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve. More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world. Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Diary of a Woman Who is Dying

From the Washington Post, the first in a series by Kim Fellner about living and dying following a terminal diagnosis: I’ve also had good role models for how to die. My mom, felled by a cancer recurrence at 86, was a dressmaker who continued to work until about six months before her death. She put her affairs in order so my father, my two siblings and I wouldn’t lose sleep over financial paperwork. She also reached out to home hospice, visited with friends, remained in charge of her life almost to the end and died at home. My father died less than three months later, at age 98. Neither of them expressed any fear. They felt as if dying was just a part of life. I’m now trying to approach my own death with that perspective. Like them, I do not believe in a higher being who actively determines the spans of our lives. I am grateful that my illness, although weird and random, is part of the natural world, unlike violence or a death for which there is someone to blame. I consider my disease a colossal case of bad luck. So how am I dealing with this unexpected twist of life? Sometimes help comes from unexpected sources. Last year, I streamed a 2015 film called “Bridge of Spies.” The lawyer played by Tom Hanks takes a Soviet spy to be exchanged back to his country and possible death. “You’re not worried?” the lawyer asks the spy. And the spy responds, “Would it help?” When I start feeling grim about my situation, I’m finding it useful to take a “Would it help?” moment to consider whether my response can improve the situation or help me cope. I’ve learned that feeling sorry for myself doesn’t make me feel better, although I have been known to utter the passing “oy” or bemoan my inability to plan very far in advance.

A Place to Live While You Plan to Die

From the Washington Post In a pastoral Vermont valley, a former hospice chaplain named Suzanne runs a retreat center for artists, health-care workers and educators — and, since mid-2023, terminally ill people seeking a safe, peaceful place to die. Suzanne, who asked that her last name not be used for privacy reasons, is one of a small but growing number of property owners who have been providing space to people coming to Vermont for physician-assisted dying since the state lifted the residency requirement for a 2013 law allowing terminally ill patients to end their lives on their schedule.

'Susan' - Documentary About Assisted Death

Molly is Taught the "Sacred" Process of Dying - Scene | Dying for Sex | FX

Not people die but worlds die in them

People Yevgeny Yevtushenko No people are uninteresting. Their fate is like the chronicle of planets. Nothing in them is not particular, and planet is dissimilar from planet. And if a man lived in obscurity making his friends in that obscurity obscurity is not uninteresting. To each his world is private, and in that world one excellent minute. And in that world one tragic minute. These are private. In any man who dies there dies with him his first snow and kiss and fight. It goes with him. There are left books and bridges and painted canvas and machinery. Whose fate is to survive. But what has gone is also not nothing: by the rule of the game something has gone. Not people die but worlds die in them. Whom we knew as faulty, the earth’s creatures Of whom, essentially, what did we know? Brother of a brother? Friend of friends? Lover of lover? We who knew our fathers in everything, in nothing. They perish. They cannot be brought back. The secret worlds are not regenerated. And every time again and again I make my lament against destruction.

"Everybody Thinks that You Are Dead, But I"

A Quoi Bon Dire?” by Charlotte Mew Seventeen years ago you said Something that sounded like Good-bye; And everybody thinks that you are dead, But I. So I, as I grow stiff and cold To this and that say Good-bye too; And everybody sees that I am old But you. And one fine morning in a sunny lane Some boy and girl will meet and kiss and swear That nobody can love their way again While over there You will have smiled, I shall have tossed your hair.

Don't Spread Your Loved One's Ashes in a Public Place

From Rick Reilly in the Washington Post I know, I know. He was the greatest person to ever live and “deserves” to have an eternal “view” from Yosemite or from the banks of Golden Pond or from the top of the Santa Monica Pier Ferris wheel. Except 3.2 million people die every year in America, and, according to the National Funeral Directors Association, 62 percent ask to be cremated. That’s more than double the rate 20 years ago. And nearly half say they “would prefer to have their remains scattered in a sentimental place.” Which would mean nearly a million incinerated Americans annually coating the sequoias at Yosemite and choking the loons on Golden Pond and sprinkling the churros of Santa Monica. It’s just bad taste. It can also be dangerous.

Witnessing Death

From CNN: "Stories about shared-death experiences have been circulating since the late 19th century, say those who study the phenomenon. The twist in shared-death stories is that it’s not just the people at the edge of death that get a glimpse of the afterlife. Those near them, either physically or emotionally, also experience the sensations of dying."

Emily Levine Embraces Death

Emily Levine had stage 4 cancer when she gave this TED talk. Life is an enormous gift, Levine says: "You enrich it as best you can, and then you give it back."

Sculpture Showing Grief

Melancholy, by Albert Gyorgy

Oliver Sacks Says Goodbye

Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and author, learned that he had terminal cancer. With his characteristic combination of objectivity and humanity, he wrote in the New York Times about his feelings on the last months of his life. I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.