I’m Dying Badly Because I Lived Badly
Part I of a Four-Part Life-Long Learning Seminar on Death, Dying, and Living
Alan, Ruth, and I convened the first of four Wednesday morning sessions on Death, Dying, and Living. You can see our group of forty above and read about the seminar below. I will write a story for each class so you can follow along.
The participants ranged in age from 50 to 98. The theme of the first three-hour meeting was the relationship between dying and living. The title comes from Leo Tolstoy’s short novel The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Wednesday’s reading. I’ve summarized the plot in the Additional Resources.
Why this class?
We began by asking each person to explain why they joined the seminar. Here are some answers.
I’m 92, and it's time to start considering this topic.
My father died last summer, and I’m still mourning him.
My kids asked me last year to tell them what I wanted to be done when I started dying and when I was dead.
I’m taking this course because my family doesn’t discuss these things.
I am grateful I was in the room at a ceremony when my friend Martin died. There were 12 of us, including Martin’s wife Mary Lou, gathered around his bed, with many touching a part of Martin, commenting on how this part had been used in his life. Martin died during this ceremony.*
Thirty years ago, I did not make it home in time for my father’s cancer death because I was afraid to say goodbye.
The last reason was mine.
As you can tell from the comments, this subject is personal, and those in our bright and sunny seminar room were ready to bring dying and death out of the corner while we still could.
Along with the introductions, Tolstoy’s short story would jump-start our conversation.
Why Ivan Ilyich?
It’s so easy to get caught up in the everydayness of life, as therapist Irvin Yalon in Staring at the Sun labels the how of life. For example, right now, I’m thinking about how to complete this sentence, the cooling coffee in the mug next to me, and whether today’s weather will allow for a walk.
Yalom writes about an ontological mode of being, not about the how of life but the THAT of life. He puts it this way.
When absorbed in the everyday mode, you turn toward such evanescent distractions as physical appearance, style, possessions, or prestige. In the ontological mode, by contrast, you are not only more aware of existence and mortality and life’s other immutable characteristics but also more anxious and more primed to make significant changes.
Tolstoy’s Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a man driven to personal transformation through a terminal illness and discovering that he was dying badly because he had lived poorly.
We divided our class into ten groups and asked them to discuss what aspects of the Ivan Ilyich story each identified with. Forty-five minutes later, a spokesperson for each group reported. Here are a few group summaries. Each one prompted additional conversation.
Ivan died at 45. In our group of four, three fathers died before they reached 50. This fact changed our families forever.
We talked about how the dying person deals with regret. And the importance of making amends before we die.
How to get rid of all our stuff so we can have peace at the end.
Of the four Kubler-Ross stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), anger is the hardest to overcome.
We talked about the role of faith in dying and death. And the role of music at the end.
We did not like the Ivan story. We found it mean-spirited. Accepting yourself for the way you are and all your imperfections is better.
Why didn’t Ivan question his life earlier? What gets us to question how our life is going?
The takeaway from session one
Telling your story opens doors.
Last spring, when Alan, Ruth, and I began talking about a seminar on death and dying, we wondered whether anyone would be interested. Since our Life-Long learning audience was mostly over 65, would they want to immerse themselves in this subject?
What we discovered were lively stories about death, dying, and living.
And a willingness to tell them.
Additional Resources
*This ritual is described in the book Peace at Last.
This is a poignant story by Jane Trombley about living and friends dying in our seventies.
A summary of Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilyich.
- Ivan Ilyich is dead, but his death is a reproach to the living.
- Before Ivan died at 45, he fell into the adult world of work, marriage, and friends but crafted a carefully protected life.
- After 17 years of devotion to duty, Ivan achieved a position and a salary that made him happy but then fell and bumped his side.
- Ivan’s gut pain worsens, but others continue to play whist (bridge).
- Two months later, Ivan looks like a dead man, but no one wants to know or seems to care.
- Ivan knew he was dying, that death “is the only truth,” but he does not understand. What is death all about?
- Gerasin, a peasant servant, young and vital, comforts Ivan, but lying about his dying by doctors, family, and friends poisons Ivan’s final days.
- A specialist doctor offers Ivan hope, but the pain never goes away.
- Early one morning, alone, Ivan weeps like a child. He hears a voice “from his soul.” Ivan asks the voice, what is it all about? And he thinks, “Maybe I didn’t live as I should have.”
- Two weeks later, Ivan is bound to his sofa. He travels back through his life and discovers it got worse and worse as it moved into the present, but he thinks, “It can’t be because I’ve lived wrongly; I’ve been so respectable.”
- Two weeks later, after telling the doctor to go away, Ivan thinks, “What if I’ve been wrong in the way I’ve lived my life?”
- One hour before this death, Ivan accepts that he is dying badly because he has lived badly but asks how this can be put right. His young son had entered Ivan’s room and had taken his hand. Ivan felt sorry for his son and wife. He tried to say, “Forgive me,” but it came out forgiveness.”
