I have read the above line many times in newspaper reports of the deaths of celebrities, most recently that of Ozzy Osbourne.
A statement from the Osbourne family reads: “It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time.” No cause of death was given, though Osbourne had experienced various forms of ill health in recent years.
That seems like a good way to die, without pain and suffering. But it also seems to me to be so unlikely. We do not know when we are going to die unless it is a situation where we have requested that life support be withdrawn or it is an assisted suicide, and the latter is difficult to carry out in the US. Since it is so unlikely that the family is around when death finally occurs, even in a hospice situation where one has come to terms with imminent death, I wonder to what extent we should take these news reports at face value.
What are the alternative explanations?
One possibility is that it is a polite fiction, that the person did die alone but that family were nearby and quickly arrived upon hearing the news. It enables people to tie a nice bow around the life of someone, a happy ending, if one can say such a thing about death.
Another possibility is that it was a clandestine assisted suicide. Many people who are every old and have their bodies failing or have been diagnosed with something that promises to have a long and protracted and painful end, often accompanied be dementia, and do not want to go through that or have their families live through it, may decide on this option. I attended a talk by member of a group that discussed how they help people die a peaceful death without bringing upon the family any legal repercussions.
While the thought of one’s own death may cause some existential angst, death itself is not to be feared (unless one is religious and believes in the possibility of endless torment in hell) but the manner of dying. Most people would like it to be fairly quick and painless, while one still has one’s faculties and physical abilities but still know that the end is near due to some untreatable condition, with enough time to get one’s affairs in order. Having one’s loved ones around for a long time waiting for you to die also seems cruel to them. Having a quick and painless death while they are still around is hard to arrange.
Such reports, even if they are a fiction, should add support to making assisted suicide more easily obtainable because that really would enable the kind of death that most people seek. The fear that drives opposition to this is that some people might urge an elderly or seriously ill relative to end their life simply for their own benefit, not that of the relative.
Based on some of the other things reported to have gone on recently (last concert just two weeks ago including ‘Mama I’m Coming Home’, farewell social media posting of a Black Sabbath poster) it seems pretty clear that this wasn’t an unexpected thing for him: he knew he was dying soon, and spent some time making sure he did some things for the last time before he died. Now, ‘clandestine assisted suicide’ is definitely one potential explanation, and nobody can be sure about that (which is kind of the point), but it’s not the only explanation.
I guess mostly what I’m saying here is that ‘dying surrounded by family’ is a lot more likely if someone is pretty sure their time left to live is only measured in weeks or days, no matter the reason. Not to mention by the end Ozzy had been pretty much wheelchair bound due to Parkinson’s for months, and Sharon was the one helping him around most of the time, so it’s not like some of his family weren’t around pretty much full-time.
A dear friend died a year ago after living with cancer for almost 5 years (the magical number that scientific papers often use as measure of ‘success’). He died surrounded by family because once he realized the doctors no longer had anything to offer him with any chance of significant improvement and once his health took a change for the worse, he asked his wife to call their kids and his parents to come.
When my mother had yet another stroke (worse than the previous ones) my siblings and I traveled to be near her. Well, she recovered that time around, but in the end she died alone of COVID which she acquired at a hospital after recovering from an unrelated lung infection. Still, my siblings and I traveled once more, at least we were able to support our father at the time.
IOW, there are many situations where a person is known (or thought) to be in their final illness, and even if the illness lasts a long while, people might be able to notice that things are getting a lot worse and know to alert family members.
Other than my wife, my family is scattered to the wind, nor are we close anyway. I stand a good chance of dying alone (of course we all die alone anyway no matter how many warm bodies surround us at the time). Meh, I don’t care either way.
My grandmother woke up one morning to find her legs much more swollen than the previous night. Someone (her home-care nurse?) suggested going to the hospital, but she said no, and instead had the nurse call nearby relatives, who came in time to be with her at the end. (Not me, I’m on the other coast.) So I guess she was “lucky” in that she saw a clear sign that the end was near but was able to make a choice and have enough time left for relatives to gather round.
#3 Dennis
The phrase ‘dying alone’ obviously refers to dying while no one is near, so why is this cynical rebuttal so common? You are far from the first person I have seen express this sentiment and I always wonder, have you experienced death yourself? How do you know what it is like to die, O wise ones?
I think it’s more common than this. Of course this is inflected by my experience with my first boyfriend, who died of HIV disease in 1990. A disease that erodes health over time has friends and family prepared to attend to the dying. In my case, my boyfriend became unresponsive in the morning, giving me the chance to notify his family before he died in the late afternoon.
I feel that this wasn’t that uncommon.
I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that some people dying of HIV were abandoned by their biological family--or even their chosen family. I think that became less common over time.
Have you seen ‘The Room Next Door’ with Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore? It is about choosing the time and place of one’s death, assisted suicide, etc.
It isn’t that big a mystery.
I see it often.
At the end of people’s lives, they can be suffering a lot and rapidly failing.
A lot of time, they are taking large numbers of medications to stay alive. Blood thinners, cardiac medications, pain killers, etc..
They just stop taking their medications and a few days later they are dead.
I’ve seen it three times in my own family.
I’ve got an end of life directive on file with my medical records and health care providers. Highly recommended.
In Britain and other countrirs in Europe, hospices are springing up to care for people at the very end of their lives and provide palliative care when needed. I don’t know about the situation in USA.
@5 — Your insult aside, this whole “dying in the loving embrace of our social successes in life” smacks of white/rich privilege (Ozzy had both), that we’re afforded such luxury while for example Gazan children are erased from existence, probably painfully and alone in most cases. Or perhaps they too were surrounded by loved ones? Well, pieces of ’em, anyway.
So yeah, label me cynical if that makes you feel better.
I’ve watched relatives die up-close and personal and near as I can tell, my presence hadn’t the slightest effect on the volume of the death rattle, the apparent pain level, nor the awareness of what’s happening in their immediate vicinity. I dunno, seems pretty alone to me. Perhaps you have insider knowledge I’m unaware of?
I knew someone who died. She was in hospice for several weeks, and I visited her there a few times. I had scheduled a visit, but the family called and said the hospice people said it wouldn’t be long so they all went and I didn’t go. The hospice had a limit on the number of people in the room, so her husband and her children were there when she stopped breathing.
The people caring for her had a lot of experience and could rather accurately guess when she was going to die.
cweigold @#7,
Thanks for that recommendation!
I had already queued up that film to watch soon. I did not know what it was about. I did so purely because it starred Tilda Swinton, whom I find to be a weirdly fascinating actor who plays strange characters in quirky films.
Hmm, maybe this phrase isn’t meant to be taken literally, like a scene in a movie where everyone is gathered around the bed, and then the individual’s head slumps to the side while the music modulates to a minor key. I am picturing a person whose days are numbered and is at home. Relatives and friends show up and visit with the person, maybe the closest are staying at the house. The person dies and maybe no one is in the room at the time, but I think it would still be fair to say that they passed away while surrounded by friends and family.
Hulk Hogan died. The article I read about it said at the very end of the article “he died surrounded by family and friends”
The most common causes of death in my family have been COPD and pneumonia, and it is literally true that when my great-grandparents, my grandparents, my parents, my sister and brother, we knew in advance what was coming and we (those of us nearby) would gather at the hospital in their final moments. I don’t think that is that uncommon.
I think the phrase “surrounded by loved ones/family” is often a bit of an exaggeration, but not far from the truth. Both of my parents died after their condition had steadily gotten worse, in the presence of at least one family member -- in my father’s case, I happened to be the one present when he stopped breathing. Although only one or two people were actually present at the moment of death, a larger number of family and loved ones had seen both parents in their last days and weeks of their lives, so imho it would not have been out of place to say that they died surrounded by family and loved ones.
#10 Dennis
My god, you’ve managed to turn my mild exasperation at your wording into a whole thing. White privilege versus Gaza! So maudlin!
I happen to agree with Jimf’s #13, noting also being in contact is a comfort for the dying person and their social group alike. I visited my grandma two or three times a week as she died, I remember well the look on her face at those times, and I am happy that I provided that sense of support to her. Banishing from the dying person a sense of abandonment is a good thing, and providing the social group with a feeling of ‘being there’ for their love one is also good.
Hence, we tend to find comfort in the thought the person died surrounded by friends and family.
Robbo @ 14
In the case of Hulk Hogan, I disliked him so much for ratting out Jesse Ventura trying to build a union that I hope the phrase is empty BS.
To quote Cally from the SF series *Blake’s 7*, “May you die alone”.
birger: Or maybe the opposite of that famous Vulcan greeting: “Die broke soon!”
When I was a kid we used to say that those who eat alone die alone -- referring to kids who refused to share treats with others.