Legacy MattersThe inability to accept the inevitability of death can ruin your life as this book reviewer writes about Susan Sontag's son and his book,
"Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son's Memoir" (David Rieff)
From the NYT review entitled A Fight for Life Consumes Both Mother and Son.
“A bad death” is another matter. We all know those when we see them, the miserably protracted and painful affairs that overwhelm everyone — the deceased and survivors alike — with panic, guilt and bitter regrets.
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Obviously,” Mr. Rieff says, “there is no comparison between the sufferings of a person who is ill and the sufferings of those who love them.” Still, one suspects he got the worst of the deal, for despite what he describes as a tense relationship with his mother, he was cast in the role of head cheerleader. His job was to enthusiastically endorse her struggle, always to be optimistic and supportive and never, ever, to talk about death.
“What she wanted from me was an adamant refusal to accept that it was even possible that she might not survive,” Mr. Rieff writes. Ms. Sontag “might be covered in sores, incontinent and half delirious,” but Mr. Rieff would “tell her at great and cheerful length about how much better she seemed to look/seem/be compared to the day before.”
Months of this duplicity left him guilty and miserable, obsessively revisiting every decision again and again, even — and especially — after she died.
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He and his mother will undoubtedly survive for a long time to come in medical school courses on death and dying — as a case study in how not to do it.