Death Be Not Proud

by John Gunther

No more financial worries!

  December 14th

  Mother has to bring food every day from Mrs. Seeley’s now. Then she stays the afternoon. Father comes up in the evening.

  Today I was too lazy to get dressed. Tomorrow I will.

  December 16th

  Still at Neurological Institute.

  Billie brought up the food for Mother today. My lab work chem. (this year’s) and physics (last year’s) is finished and I showed it to Mr. Ohl. Now I will do a little algebra in case I flunked the exam, which Father sent to school.

  I asked Father to call up Dr. Gerson’s assistant to see if NaCl irrigation is all right. Perhaps they can use KCl instead. Gerson gets apoplexy at the sight of sodium!

  December 17th

  Ask Francis Bitter what is the relation of that which a particle loses upon deceleration and that which it gains upon the approach of another particle.

  I have been much more “spontaneous” ever since the operation last spring. I relieve myself of worries regularly to Mother.

  Now I can’t even remember the things that used to bother me.

  This annoys me.

  December 18th

  John Davison here. He told me about Mrs. Boyden’s special class, Math Beta—I must find out more about it.

  December 21st

  Hubners visit me. I do a lot of physics and math. Father can’t come. Mother tells me of Grandma. This tumor is wearing her down somewhat.

  I asked Dr. Mount the other day to dig another hole in my head and pull the packing through. I have an abscess from the dead tumor cells. I have had surgery, x-rays, mustard gas and Gerson diet.

  December 22nd

  I teach Edgar chemistry lessons. Henry visited me. Tomorrow Mr. Ohl (my tutor) comes. I did lots of work.

  My papilledema is gone, but my visual field is still restricted. They are finally going to stop the NaCl in my irrigation. I call up Dr. Traeger about it.

  Every day I call Mother and Father in the morning. I get dressed and bathe almost every day now. I drink one and a half quarts apple-carrot juice, one quart soup and vegetables, unsalted. No fats, little protein.

  December 23rd, 1946

  Dr. Mount gave me permission to go home for 24 hours!!

  I must get: Physics test. Dry shampoo. Clothes. Notebook.

  I shaved today. Zurs are coming. Write Xmas cards.

  December 24, 1946

  I go home for 24 hours. Xmas Eve I play Christmas carrols on my recorder.

  I must write an essay on education for Atlantic Monthly con-test, also on “Bull Slinging,” Lincoln’s defect, and Silas Marner.

  December 24-26

  Judy, Hubners, Frankie Adams, Francis Bitter, David Burnett, are all here.

  Wonderful presents!

  Two Thesauruses

  Watch

  Dictionary

  Wonderful pen

  I help with tree and all—and write thank you notes!—also get stuff from Mrs. Seeley.

  Had wonderful lunch there.

  December 27th

  Dr. Mount changes my bandage. I have a big one covering my ears but nice and loose. My head itches!

  I call up Mr. Boyden!—find out about Math exam. I filled out my address book.

  December 30th

  I passed the math exam! Now for physics.

  Francis Bitter is here. He explained a scientific toy that has been driving us insane. A little glass duck that moves by itself perched on a glass of water. I worked on physics too.

  I remember “Wind Sand and Stars,” “The Yearling,” etc. Have I read “Black Boy”? I can’t remember. I guess I’m a bit tired and given to introspection today.

  I am at last learning the art of conversation. (I hope!) Up until last spring I hardly talked at all. Mother used to get awfully mad.

  Before going to bed I call up my parents.

  I feel strangely content now.

  Facts About Operation

  Face swollen so I couldn’t see four to five days. “Needle in arm” three full days without my knowing it.

  O2 in my room for four days; used it for 36 hours, it cost $100.

  When my father told me I had had a little operation, I said, “Of course, I heard them drill three little holes.”

  Before the operation I had a Wassermann!! First thing I asked for is my physics book.

  January 1, 1947

  Yesterday I cleared up the whole matter of the Jews with parents.

  Today John Davison and Edgar were here.

  January 3rd

  Passed math exam. Billie here today. Worked on physics.

  January 4th

  Called up Cass Canfield to thank him for present.

  January 5th

  EFFICIENCY!

  January 6th

  Had a talk with Professor Shaub, fellow patient. I must tell him my theories, etc. Korzybski is too much for him also!

  Dr. Gerson here. I still have the little heat machine that was given to me (a duck-shaped scientific toy). I showed him how it works—it drives everyone crazy.

  January 8th

  Yesterday I discussed fears of death with Mother.

  For years I have had a lack of confidence in myself, fears about ultimate reality.

  Accept death with detachment.

  Take more pleasure in life for its own sake.

  PROFESSOR SHAUB TEACHES ME CALCULUS!

  MY QUESTION USED ON INFORMATION PLEASE!

  January 16th

  I am back at Mrs. Seeley’s now. Have been for three-four days.

  Recontent with the universe. Discontent with the world.

  January 17th

  Letter to Aunt Hester. Edgar visited me. He complains of his school work.

  December January 18th

  Finish review of last year’s physics except for last-minute review. Day after tomorrow I go up to Medical Center for change of bandage. We had a little party here.

  Jan 19

  Tired and worried until Mother straightens things out.

  January 21st

  Dream—no room for me when I get back to school.

  January 24th

  Card comes from Henry in our chess game by mail. Bertha corrects chemical experiment; I can spell after all! Once I had a bad English teacher. . . . therefore I didn’t do any work in it. Got terrible marks.

  January 26th

  Yesterday I took last year’s physics exam.

  February 3rd

  Sometimes I wish I was as cheerful to myself as to others— nonsense!!

  Oh! What a letter I wrote to “the Bart” [Mr. Boyden]—500 words vindicating myself.

  We have an English tutor for me now, Mr. Seton. I work very hard.

  Dr. Gerson has great fun with my metabolism. It’s too high, then too low, then too normal.

  February 9th, Sunday

  HOME!—since last Thursday.

  Dinner Party!! Saturday

  MARY SANDERS HERE!

  (My temp, goes up to 99.5!)

  And Edgar, Judy.

  February 17th

  Oh how I work on last year’s English! Mr. Seton tells me to slow down. We go over to Mrs. Seeley’s for lunch almost every day.

  Metabolism is right!—plus 13.

  I give myself injection!

  Worried about dancing.

  Encyclopedia arrives!

  Wednesday, Feb. 19, 1947, A.D.

  A little amnesia today.

  I think that I realize and accept the “goodness of life.” I should not need to “hang on to” chemical brainstorms, selfabnegation, etc.

  Tuesday, March 18

  The other day I saw Dr. Levy again. I am up to Civil War in the history.

  Things to do; autobiography. Scroll. Call up Judy and Lionel. Clean up. Henry comes Thursday.

  Dr. Levy—Friday 11. Dr. Berliner—Tuesday 2:30.

  April 13th

  Yesterday I took seven hours of college board exams! The other day Father took me to the Public Library to look up facts about lithium
hydride and liquid NH.

  I am still not permitted to go outside by myself.

  Monday 21

  Oh how tired I feel.

  Bulkley over here. Tells of his escapade.

  May

  Back to Neurological Institute! A second operation. They shave off all my hair again! Damn it.

  But I can eat again! Steak, ice cream! Cream of mushroom soup!

  Oh! How good it is.

  May 13th

  Yesterday I got outside for a walk with Jim Cortwright and nurse. Also I worked hard on trig and English.

  I get letter from Mother in Florida.

  May 16

  Home again after only two weeks! I go to tutoring school. In hospital after brain operation the other day I played poker with fellow patients.

  May 20

  Parents go on successive vacations. I work hard on trig. A letter comes from Bob Harrison.

  May 30th

  Parents drive me back to Deerfield! Oh! It’s great! I am given a German book and a math book. Mrs. Boyden tutors me in chem. Mr. Havilland in German. I roam about.

  My left hand is still a bit clumsy. I stay at the Infirmary nights. I can’t yet tie my shoe. I brought the metallic lithium up with me.

  I say hellow to all the boys.

  June 3rd

  We (Mother and I) see The Mikado, the Senior play. Heywood Alexander is wonderful as Kiko.

  I graduate—get diploma!

  June 5

  Home again, 530 Park!! I look up things in the Public Library about liquid NH3. I lunch with Jon Van Winkle, a new boy whom I met in my week at Deerfield. He had taught me some calculus.

  June 12

  I go back to Memorial Hospital for nitrogen mustard treatment.

  I finish reading “Human Destiny” by Du Nouy. It proves existence of God, or an “antichance,” from evolution and by scientific reasoning.

  Thursday, June 26

  I go to Public Library to collect information on liquid NH3. Yesterday I saw Peter Blose after all these years! He and Edgar and I romped together in Fourth Grade at Lincoln.

  I phone Mary but she can’t come to lunch.

  These are the last entries in the diary proper, four days before he died.

  At the back of the notebook are several pages of notations of chemical and mathematical formulae, also a list of presents he wished to give Frances and me. I was to get a pipe, some records, and a size 7% hat; Frances was to have an electric blanket, a large candle from Georg Jensen, and an old Fifth Avenue bus.

  The very last words are written inside the back cover. Frances had told him the story of the ancient Hebrew toast, “L’chaim.” Johnny’s notation is: “Hebrew Toast: Le Hy-eem— To Life.”

  A Word from Frances

  Death always brings one suddenly face to face with life. Nothing, not even the birth of one’s child, brings one so close to life as his death.

  Johnny lay dying of a brain tumor for fifteen months. He was in his seventeenth year. I never kissed him good night without wondering whether I should see him alive in the morning. I greeted him each morning as though he were newly born to me, a re-gift of God. Each day he lived was a blessed day of grace.

  The impending death of one’s child raises many questions in one’s mind and heart and soul. It raises all the infinite questions, each answer ending in another question. What is the meaning of life? What are the relations between things: life and death? the individual and the family? the family and society? marriage and divorce? the individual and the state? medicine and research? science and politics and religion? man, men, and God?

  All these questions came up in one way or another, and Johnny and I talked about them, in one way or another, as he was dying for fifteen months. He wasn’t just dying, of course. He was living and dying and being reborn all at the same time each day. How we loved each day. “It’s been another wonderful day, Mother!” he’d say, as I knelt to kiss him good night.

  There are many complex and erudite answers to all these questions, which men have thought about for many thousands of years, and about which they have written many thousands of books.

  Yet at the end of them all, when one has put away all the books, and all the words, when one is alone with oneself, when one is alone with God, what is left in one’s heart? Just this:

  I wish we had loved Johnny more.

  Since Johnny’s death, we have received many letters from many kind friends from all parts of the world, each expressing his condolence in his own way. But through most of them has run a single theme: sympathy with us in facing a mysterious stroke of God’s will that seemed inexplicable, unjustifiable and yet, being God’s will, must also be part of some great plan beyond our mortal ken, perhaps sparing him or us greater pain or loss.

  Actually, in the experience of losing one’s child in death, I have found that other factors were involved.

  I did not for one thing feel that God has personally singled out either him or us for any special act, either of animosity or generosity. In a way I did not feel that God was personally involved at all. I have all my life had a spontaneous, instinctive sense of the reality of God, in faith, beyond ordinary belief. I have always prayed to God and talked things over with Him, in church and out of church, when perplexed, or very sad, or also very happy. During Johnny’s long illness, I prayed continually to God, naturally. God was always there. He sat beside us during the doctors’ consultations, as we waited the long vigils out-side the operating room, as we rejoiced in the miracle of a brief recovery, as we agonized when hope ebbed away, and the doctors confessed there was no longer anything they could do. They were helpless, and we were helpless, and in His way, God, standing by us in our hour of need, God in His infinite wisdom and mercy and loving kindness, God in all His omnipotence, was helpless too.

  Life is a myriad series of mutations, chemical, physical, spiritual. The same infinitely intricate, yet profoundly simple, law of life that produced Johnny—his rare and precious soul, his sweetness, his gaiety, his gallantry, his courage: for it was only after his death, from his brief simple diaries, written as directly as he wrote out his beloved chemical experiments, that we learned he had known all along how grave was his illness, and that even as we had gaily pretended with him that all was well and he was completely recovering, he was pretending with us, and bearing our burden with the spirit, the elan, of a singing soldier or a laughing saint—that law of life which out of infinite mutation had produced Johnny, that law still mutating, destroyed him. God Himself, no less than us is part of that law. Johnny was an extraordinarily lovable and alive human being. There seemed to be no evil, only an illuminating good, in him. Everybody who knew him, his friends and teachers at Lincoln, Riverdale, and Deerfield, our neighbors in the country at Madison, felt the warmth of his goodness and its great vitality in him. Yet a single cell, mutating experimentally, killed him. But the law of mutations, in its various forms, is the law of the universe. It is impersonal, inevitable. Grief cannot be concerned with it. At least, mine could not.

  My grief, I find, is not desolation or rebellion at universal law or deity. I find grief to be much simpler and sadder. Contemplating the Eternal Deity and His Universal Laws leaves me grave but dry-eyed. But a sunny fast wind along the Sound, good sailing weather, a new light boat, will shake me to tears: how Johnny would have loved this boat, this wind, this sunny day!

  All the things he loved tear at my heart because he is no longer here on earth to enjoy them. All the things he loved! An open fire with a broiling steak, a pancake tossed in the air, fresh nectarines, black-red cherries—the science columns in the papers and magazines, the fascinating new technical developments—the Berkshire music festival coming in over the air, as we lay in the moonlight on our wide open beach, listening— how he loved all these! For like many children of our contemporary renaissance, he was many-sided, with many loves. Chemistry and math were his particular passion, but as a younger child at school, he had painted gay spirited pictures of sailing bo
ats and circuses, had sculpted some lovable figures, two bears dancing, a cellist playing, and had played some musical instruments himself, piano, violin, and his beloved recorder. He collected stamps, of course, and also rocks; he really loved and knew his rocks, classified them, also cut and polished them in his workshop, and dug lovely bits of garnet from the Connecticut hillsides.

  But the thing closest to his heart was his Chem Lab which he cherished passionately. It grew and expanded in town and country. He wanted to try experiments that had not been done before. He liked to consider abstract principles of the sciences, searched intuitively for unifying theories.

  He had many worthy ambitions which he did not live long enough to achieve. But he did achieve one: graduation with his class at Deerfield. Despite the long illness that kept him out of school a year and a half, he insisted on being tutored in the hospital and at home, taking his class exams, and the college board exams for Harvard, and then returning to Deerfield for commencement week. The boys cheered him as he walked down the aisle to receive his diploma, his head bandaged but held high, his young face pale, his dark blue eyes shining with the joy of achievement. A fortnight later, he died.

  What is the grief that tears me now?

  No fear of death or any hereafter. During our last summer at Madison, I would write in my diary when I couldn’t sleep. “Look Death in the face. T o look Death in the face, and not be afraid. To be friendly to Death as to Life. Death as a part of Life, like Birth. Not the final part. I have no sense of finality about Death. Only the final scene in a single act of a play that goes on forever. Look Death in the face: it’s a friendly face, a kindly face, sad, reluctant, knowing it is not welcome but having to play its part when its cue is called, perhaps trying to say, ‘Come, it won’t be too bad, don’t be afraid, I understand how you feel, but come—there may be other miracles!’ No fear of Death, no fight against Death, no enmity toward Death, friendship with Death as with Life. That is—Death for myself, but not for Johnny, God, not yet. He’s too young to miss all the other parts of Life, all the other lovely living parts of Life. All the wonderful, miraculous things to do, to feel, to see, to hear, to touch, to smell, to taste, to experience, to enjoy. What a joy Life is. Why does no one talk of the joy of Life? shout, sing, write of the joy of Life? Looking for books to read with Johnny, and all of them, sad, bitter, full of fear, hate, death, destruction, damnation, or at best resignation. No great books of enjoyment, no sense of great utter simple delight pleasure fun sport joy of Life.”