I pass

A pet hate of mine is the use of the term \”He/she passed\” meaning they died. It began, I guess, as a euphemism – \”passed away\” being a more gentle way of saying \”died\”. It gave a mental image of someone gently leaving life this Earth, having, in the Victorian term, a \”good death\”. But now, thanks to the Americans, the term has gone from \”passed away\” to \”passed\”. The implication is that the deceased has not gone \”away\”, disappeared, but has merely passed from one place/state to another.

When Carrie Fisher died one day, and Debbie Reynolds the next, the comments the family made show the result of the \”passed\” mentality. The day Carrie died, Debbie said, to the world, \”I am grateful for your thoughts and prayers that are now guiding her to her next stop\”. There is no \”next stop\” , Carrie was, simply, dead, had died, was gone.

The next day was worse. Comments came from family and friends – \”Debbie went to be with Carrie\”, \”The last thing she said this morning was that she was very, very sad about losing Carrie and that she would like to be with her again …. The only thing we\’re taking solace in is that what she wanted to do was take care of her daughter…\”. Her son also said \”She did not die of a broken heart but just \’left to be with Carrie\’\”. He said his mother \”joined his sister in death because Reynolds didn\’t want to leave Carrie and did not want to her to be alone\”. \”My mother and sister are together right now\” he said. A widely circulate drawing showed Reynolds in \’Singin in the Rain\’ outfit and Fisher in \’Star Wars\’ outfit, arm in arm heading towards a bright light.

Frightening stuff. They are both, just, dead. There is nowhere for them to \”be together\” they are just dead. Have stopped living. That\’s it.

You could argue that this sort of nonsense provides consolation to those deluded by religion. But it encourages people to believe in the validity of religious nonsense. Ultimately, this kind of belief in an \”afterlife\” sees young men and women jumping out of trenches into certainly lethal machine gun fire, diving planes into aircraft carriers or tall buildings, blowing themselves up with belts or in cars, refusing vital medical treatment, and so on. It also leads to a kind of resigned acceptance in other deaths, that someone\’s time had come, god wanted them, needed them in heaven with him, instead of fighting as hard as possible to save a life, support medical research, hold governments to account.

I don\’t expect it to change, too firmly embedded in the enormous capacity for self-delusion that Homo sapiens has. But I know how precious life is, the only one we get, and:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I will not go gentle unto that dark night, fooled by an illusion of another life to come.

I pass on death.