Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 18, No. 4, 1979

Reflections

on Death

FATHER CHARLES A. CURRAN

The Reverend Charles A. Curran died on July 25, 1978. He was Research Professor of Human Relations and Professor of Psychology at Loyola University of Chicago. Father Curran was among the founders of the Academy of Religion and Mental Health and active throughout his life in educating counselors. He was a priest and teacher of remarkable insight and sensitivity. This brief article, written a few months before his death, was made available to us by the organization he founded, Counseling-Learning Institutes, of East Dubuque, Illinois, and expresses his personality better than any words we might write. Harry C. Meserve, Editor The concept of death as presented in the media and in popular parlance can be misleading. Death is usually pictured as a battle t h a t must be fought and won. This attitude leads to some interesting speculations concerning modern-day attitudes toward death. Franklin's well-known statement t h a t "nothing is as certain as death and taxes" suggests a time when death was looked upon with a certain inevitable complacency. A contemporary of Franklin, Cotton Mather, was said to have received forty pairs of gloves, as tokens of his attendance at forty funerals, within a period of six months. Death, then, was a common happening and was, indeed, like paying taxes. Another sage has embellished Franklin's words and noted t h a t death is the tax we pay for living. This concept of death, however, has changed in recent years. Our present concept of death can trace its origins at least to World War II. The entire population united against a common enemy and discovered t h a t by working together it was possible to "win." We now apply the same approach to the concept of death as the enemy t h a t must be vanquished. An analogy from the sports world also seems appropriate here. The locker room of the victors radiates good humor, enthusiasm, an exuberant sense of life. The locker room of the losers, on the other hand, is often described as being like a "morgue." These images suggest t h a t if there is only victory, defeat carries a devastating sense of failure. The very phrases t h a t are used to describe death are revealing. Often a magazine will feature the headline "I won the battle over cancer," and certainly this can be an ego trip for the person proclaiming the victory. But, in the final analysis, isn't this setting up a terrible sense of loss and failure for those who don't win? Copyright 9 1978 by Counseling-LearningInstitutes. All rights reserved. 0022-4197/79/1000-0260500.95

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Reflections on Death

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The focus of drug advertisements and soap operas perpetuates the same attitude. Do battle. Fight with every available weapon to ward off the enemy labeled death. The sense of death and dying as the ultimate failure of a failure seems to me the most tragic concept of all. Perhaps the very success of our materialistic culture is part of the problem. Life is certainly easier, for the most part, for our generation t h a n in Franklin's time. Then the average life span was forty or fifty years. Yet for all the harsh realities of life, death was viewed as a fulfillment, a release, and finally a completion of life. Life was the portrait, and death was the frame !that completed the picture. Thus, by proposing, to fight against death, we lose a certain sense of n a t u r a l fulfillment. Death should be viewed as rich and gracious--significant in and of itself. Perhaps it is not as raucous as Joyce pictures it in Finnegan's Wake, but certainly it can be seen without the gloom of the defeated locker room. How terrible to equate dying people with losers and to avoid them as we avoid the losers' locker room. Newsweek, in trying to encapsulate all of life's experiences, uses the simple heading "Transitions" on its s u m m a r y page of births, marriages, divorces, and deaths, suggesting by a happy circumstance t h a t death is simply one of life's transitions t h a t we all experience. The same concept is contained in the old hymns t h a t talk of r162 to the other shore" or the ancient idea of crossing the river Styx. These concepts of t r a n s i t i o n - - t h i s sense of moving along--are far wiser in all their implications t h a n a battle against an enemy which leaves winners to be congratulated and losers to be avoided. The very term "soap opera" leads to some interesting word speculations. To ~soft-soap" someone means to flatter. What we n e e d today are some "hardsoap" operas t h a t would lead us through all the transitional aspects of life. Do we really need to be soft-soaped about death? I think not. Positive changes are occurring. The movement among young people to study death even to take courses about it--suggests a search for a different approach to the subject. The fact t h a t more people are willing to talk about death and t h a t magazines are willing to devote cover stories to changing attitudes about death is a positive sign. All religions incorporate in their teachings to some extent certain ceremonies and rituals concerning death. Perhaps a study of these transitions, even a popularization of them through the media, the soap operas, the advertisements, might ultimately change our conception of death from the battle to be won or the enemy to be vanquished to the image of death as encompassing a sense of peace and self-fulfillment. Perhaps it remains for Hubert H u m p h r e y to give us, in death, ideas to ponder and reflect upon even as he did in life. With the exuberance t h a t governed his living, he left us with a positive image of dying. His deep gratitude for the friends who showed their care and concern for him and, indeed, the tremendous outpouring of love t h a t was evidenced in his last months provided him with a final sense of dignity and honor. The example of Humphrey's life and death illustrates the kind of peaceful,

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life-enhancing sense of death t h a t we need. N e w s w e e k has chosen wisely in signifying the changes in our lives under the heading "Transitions." This is not a deat h wish, by any means. D eat h wishes are often rebellious, revengeful assertions against mortality. I would endorse the concept of death as the willingness to relinquish our grasp on life and not to feel that, because we have invested in life, we cannot also invest in death. The model for death, then, should be one t h a t incorporates a sense of hopeful fulfillment, not one t h a t labels death as the enemy. In viewing death as a transition, we come closer to uncovering its true m e a n i n g in our lives.

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