Death, the Final Flush
Everybody’s gotta go sometime
If you are a young mom, you understand that the bathroom is for doing your business as efficiently as possible before your son desperately needs to show off his latest Lego creation, or your toddler, in the critical stages of potty training, can’t hold it one more second.
The bathroom might also be for snatching two or three of the Oreos (or perhaps the vodka, I’m not judging) you keep stashed behind the towels, or just taking a minute to breathe deeply or wipe tears or pray.
I am painfully aware of the importance of bathroom time, but I never developed the habit, as my husband has, of snatching up a book on his way to the john. When I was a child, we had one bathroom for all seven of us to use. It was a lesson in patience, to be sure, but I’m not sure how our bladders fared. Moreover, the bathroom was never a place where one could escape for some alone time.
Now that Rob and I are empty nesters, I can appreciate the serenity and solitude of a long bathroom visit. Our prenuptial agreement included an important clause that prohibits us from being in the bathroom at the same time for any reason. So I’m never really sure what he does in his private time, and I keep my secrets behind closed doors as well.
The bathroom is certainly a mysterious place, although we all pretty much know what goes on in there. We empty ourselves, clean ourselves, groom ourselves. We take care of the most personal, intimate requirements of our bodies. And sometimes we die there. What could be more poetic?
What’s happening in there?
Aaron Carter, Judy Garland, Jim Morrison, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Chaplin all died in the bathroom. My husband’s favorite aunt also died in the bathroom. Her daughter found her on the floor, still clutching a pencil in one hand and a word search puzzle book in the other. They placed the word search book in her coffin with her.
I never met Pappy, my father’s father. He died in the bathroom the year before my parents met. The one picture I have seen of him shows a tall, skinny man with protruding ears and an expression of weariness and terror. This is probably because he is surrounded by his fourteen children.
Pappy died in the middle of the night. I like to imagine it was the only time of day he could use the bathroom in relative peace and quiet. I guess if you go to the bathroom for alone time, you increase the odds of dying there.
The discovery
“Your Aunt Jean found him,” my mother reminds us whenever we speak of Pappy’s death.
Uncle Richard died in the bathroom. “Your cousin Christie found him.”
Just as important as the death is the discovery.
The media is quick to reveal who found the body in the bathroom. James Gandolfini’s son found his father on the bathroom floor. If you Google “Ginger Alden,” you will learn that her claim to fame is discovering Elvis Presley’s body in the bathroom. Oh, and by the way, she was an actress. She was on that television show. You know the one.
Personal assistant Mary Jones discovered Whitney Houston in the bathtub. Chances are good that she will be writing a book or selling the rights to the story if she hasn’t already. In a chain of irony, Houston’s daughter, Bobbi Kristina also died in the bathtub, and the man who found her, Max Lomas, died in the bathroom a few years later. Not the same bathroom, though. At least I don’t think so.
The person who finds you catches a glimpse of your last moments and has the option to reveal them or protect them. To cover you or leave you for the world to see. So I always touch up my makeup and fix my hair before I sit down in the loo.
Living and dying in the bathroom
One theory is that so many die in the bathroom because that’s where people go when they aren’t feeling well. They awake in the night thinking they have heartburn or indigestion, so they stumble to the medicine cabinet or sit down hoping to find some relief. But it isn’t indigestion after all.
At this point, if you are considering never setting foot in your bathroom again, you should know that more people die in bed than in the bathroom. My father’s relatives lean toward dying in the bathroom, but my mother’s family almost all die lying down. It’s almost as if they reach a point where they know death is inevitable, so they just go to bed and wait for it.
You might think I’m being glib about this, but I promise you that I take death seriously, especially when it is hastened by dangerous choices. But for almost all of us, death is unavoidable. But if we keep that reality in mind, there’s a good chance that when the reaper arrives at the bathroom door, we won’t be caught with our pants down, so to speak.
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