May 13, 2024

"The procedure, or the appointment — none of us seem to want to say the word death — has been moved from Thursday morning to the early afternoon."

"Another lifetime of waiting. By 9 a.m., the clouds have broken, and my mother is already dressed, her hair in curlers. She is sitting on the bed, looking at her computer. My sister and I suggest a walk. My mother declines: 'I’m doing emails. Just unsubscribing from Politico.' 'Mom!' We splutter. 'We can do that! It’s your last day on earth!' Which it is, and so we desist. Around noon, we go down to the hotel bar. My mother orders a whiskey-soda, ice cream, and a glass of Barolo. She enjoys the wine so much that I suggest she could just not go through with it and stay in this exact hotel and drink herself into oblivion for the rest of her life. Like Bartleby, she’d prefer not to."

From "The Last Thing My Mother Wanted/Healthy at age 74, she decided there was nothing on earth still keeping her here, not even us" (NY Magazine)(the mother opts for assisted suicide, available in Switzerland)("She had a three-pronged rationale... The world was going to hell, and she did not want to see more; she did not get joy out of the everyday pleasures of life or her relationships; and she did not want to face the degradations of aging").

I don't think I'd ever seen Bartleby used in the context of suicide, but here's a 2011 New Yorker column by Ian Crouch, "Bartleby and Social Media: I Would Prefer Not To":
[W]ho’s looking out for the introverts, the misanthropes, or the outcasts? Finally, there is an answer: GroupMeh, which bills itself as “a revolutionary, game-changing social network for the tragically apathetic.”...
The New Yorker has a link for GroupMeh, but I'm not passing it along, because at the moment it goes to a Japanese porn site. I guess the meh folks got tired of performative tiredness.
The interjection “meh”...  hasn’t made it into Webster’s or the O.E.D., but other dictionaries have brought it into the fold. It’s a ideal world [sic] for these ironic times....

Are we still having ironic times? Irony passed, didn't it? It rarely seemed worth the effort to vouch for the sincerity of anything. I was struck this morning to see "earnest" modifying "utopian vision" to describe a nitwit art project.

Anyway, these days, "meh" has made it into the OED, where the supportive quotes include "While this seems like an also-ran collection... even meh Picasso is better than a lot of the stuff out there."

The New Yorker piece continues:

My pending application [to GroupMeh] got me thinking about great instances of meh in literature. Before I got bored... I’d come up with Melville’s inscrutable ginger-nut eating scrivener in “Bartleby,” a key touchstone in the grand tradition of office-work existentialism in American culture.... When the lawyer asks him to perform a new task, Bartleby’s industriousness quickly gives way to... a mysterious siren call for disgruntled employees everywhere: “I would prefer not to.” The formal language of his refusal might seem strange today. A twenty-first-century Bartleby would probably take one earbud out, look up at his boss, and just say: “Meh.” Later, when the lawyer tried to placate him with an idea for a new job as a bartender, the oft-refusing Bartleby goes further in establishing his meh bona fides: “I would not like it at all; though, as I said before, I am not particular.” Apathy muddled by strong opinion and obstinacy, the scrivener would fit right in among my generation, posting weary outrage in comments sections.

Over to you, comments section. 

68 comments:

n.n said...

Self-abortion through Planned Parent/hood (PP) for a progressive quality of life... death.

Levi Starks said...

I’d suggest a movie now available on demand on TCM “seventh continent”

Iman said...

This sad tale may often be the culmination of life as a Democrat. Selfish… little to no regard for even their one-time loved ones.
Could even be “trending”, as they say…

Aggie said...

The banality of evil, in a new, family-friendly format. "Mom, it's your last day on earth, don't worry about the subscriptions !" Is the family enabling, or just psycho?

gilbar said...

this is our Brave New World..
suicide is not Just allowed.. it is encouraged.. and PRAISED!!!!
All hail the 70 year old woman GETTING THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY!!
THIS is how we WILL solve our social security crisis.. Whether you want it; or Not!

Serious Question..
How come we don't (yet!) have Medical Assistance In Dying for gender dysphoria? It seems MAID to order

n.n said...

Selfish

Selfieish.

n.n said...

Is the family enabling, or just psycho?

They sympathize with her needs and empathize with a redistributive change of her assets. #LoveWins #NoJudgment #NoLabels

My Kids' Dad said...

I have had to try answering unanswerable questions and explaining to my children the unexplainable... Suicide (and what is leaves in its wake), both in magnitude and meaning, is anything but meh... But then, the distributions of selfishness and narcissism have their outliers...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBZi4Qb_59s

Yancey Ward said...

One of the two Dylan Thomas' poems I have memorized is appropriate here- it is one I thought a lot about when my father was in hospice care in 2018, but he was in physical pain every day and unable to walk any longer thus I couldn't be very angry towards him for his decision since I could offer him no realistic vision of a future that was different- I would have had to lie.

However, if he had been healthy and pain free my anger would have been volcanic.

Narr said...

My older brother may have offed himself with a drug overdose, but he sure waited until he had fucked everyone else as much as possible.

Twenty years ago today, and decades late as far as I'm concerned.

Tom T. said...

I can't imagine telling my children, even as adults, that I didn't want to spend any more time with them. She's not in physical pain or even declining health. This seems like untreated clinical depression.

Something about the urge to suicide just totally seems to override normal human feeling in some people. The mother of one of the graduating seniors fell to her death in the stadium at the Ohio State commencement, and they think it was a suicide. Not only to do that to her family, but to forever mar her daughter's day of accomplishment - one just can't be in one's right mind.

traditionalguy said...

The blessings of Abraham include “a full life span.” She prefers the curses.

The Medical Ethecists are in business. Their oath is to first do terminal harm.

Quayle said...

I morn for her and her loved ones. She should have read or memorized more Edna St. Vincent Millay.

"The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,—
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by."

joshbraid said...

"There are two ways: the way of life and the way of death; and great is the difference between the two." (Didache 1:1)

traditionalguy said...

She must not llike her grandchildren much. They need her wisdom more than she knows.!

RCOCEAN II said...

Ian Crouch and his mother seem like from another planet. But then, its the New Yorker.

My own opinion, based on nothing, is that most people who commit suicide (excepting those who are in pain and cant bear it any longer or the terminally ill) suffer from extreme depression. And its sometimes inherited. For example, The Hemingway family has almost a genetic "Suicide Gene".

Whats amazing about most people is how they will cling onto life until the very last second. They have no intention of going into that good night and will put up with disgrace and torture just to eek out a couple more days on planet earth.

You program people (cf: Bushido Code or the Romans) to regard suicide as preferable to dishonor but it wont take with the vast majority.

If I ever do "get tired of life" at 74, I probably would just drink myself to death. Seems like a good way to go. Or maybe have a couple bottles of good wine and jump off a cliff. I certainly wouldn't cheerily converse with my son about cancelling a magazine subscription.

RCOCEAN II said...

BTW, Bartleby was an annoying passive-aggressive jackass who needed someone to beat the crap out of him. Then maybe he would've been a little more tolerable.

Joe Smith said...

The kids must feel great.

We used to drink Bartleby and James in high school.

Didn't know someone wrote a story about it...

Harun said...

My uncle tried to starve himself to death. (Brain cancer diagnosis not good.)

But first he paid all his bills off, and gassed his vehicle up.

We found him and got him in home hospice care, but really, don't make fun of people settling up their affairs before death.

Greg Hlatky said...

Was she in the grip of unutterable pain? Was she threatened with hideous torture? Were there flames behind her and an abyss in front?

No. She was bored. She was shallow. Her family meant nothing to her. The future meant nothing to her. She was selfish. Now she's dead. May God have mercy on her shallow, empty soul.

AlbertAnonymous said...

Wow. Just sad. Healthy 74 year old? Gotta be some depression in there I would think. Otherwise this decisions is nonsensical.

Then again, I’ve never understood suicide. And that’s all this is, albeit with a different tool than those that are customarily used, and not done in solitude as most are.

Achilles said...

If you raised children that do not try to talk you out of this then...

Lilly, a dog said...

How did Politico respond?

"Please reconsider. We hate to see you go."

Michael Fitzgerald said...

Subscription to Politico? There's the problem- mommy's an AWFL.

Rusty said...

What a selfish bitch. Or maybe she wasn't the best mom either. "Thank god she's gone."

BarrySanders20 said...

Did she do a Tik Tok? Or at least take a selfie?

No? Then the Self Execution Will Not Be Televised

Questioning who would support such a person. I think I'd be like (Life of) Brian's mom and walk away muttering "Fine. Be crucified. See if I care."

BarrySanders20 said...

She saw Shawshank Redemption and emulated Brooks rather than Red or Andy. Get busy living or get busy dyin'. She made her choice.

Wince said...

I Palindrome I

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wiFLGA4Yh0s&start=2608

Someday mother will die and I'll get the money

Mom leans down and says, "My sentiments exactly,

You son of a bitch"

I palindrome I (I palindrome I)

And I am a snake head eating (snake head)
The head on the opposite side (snake head)
I palindrome I (manonam)…

"Son I am able, " she said "though you scare me."
"Watch, " said I
"Beloved, " I said "watch me scare you though." said she,
"Able am I, Son."

Dude1394 said...

So no grandkiddos? Sterile children? Amazing that someone would not want to see/interact with grandchildren. But hey, human beings are endlessly unpredictable.

Iman said...

“Twenty years ago today, and decades late as far as I'm concerned.”

Dat’s cold, narr… gave me shivers.

But it may’ve been this morning’s colonoscopy… 🤔

Big Mike said...

It’s the daughters’ fault for not giving her grandkids. And if the old biddy still wanted to end her life despite the love children bear towards their grandparents then she didn’t deserve to live.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...


"If I ever do "get tired of life" at 74, I probably would just drink myself to death"

Just so. In the very unlikely event that I reach a point in my life where nothing is needed from me by those I care about, I'm going to shout, "Free at last!"

That will probably never happen, nor do I want it to, but if opportunity knocks...

I suspect her kids are culpable in ways that they'll never acknowledge or understand.

gspencer said...

"her hair in curlers,"

getting ready for the big moment.

Reminded me of the convicted prisoner getting ready for that last injection. Do they really need to swab the skin area with a disinfectant?

Ralph L said...

I predict this will be the next Big Thing, after World War T fizzles out, but I don't believe it will be popular enough for the US to avoid going the way of Argentina. Apres le deluge, moi, if I'm lucky.

Leland said...

The world was going to hell, and she did not want to see more; she did not get joy out of the everyday pleasures of life

A subscription to Politico will do that to you.

Kai Akker said...

Think how much so many people would give for any of the years this woman threw away so blithely.

I started to put in revealing bits of excerpts, but it turns out there were more, far more, than mere revealing bits! Here they were, anyway, it still seems worth the effort.



She would not need to worry about waking up or being cremated alive. This was a relief to her, Mom says with a smile.


In June, my sister and I had learned, almost by accident, that she was seeking an assisted suicide.

Almost? Not in any way, shape or form!!!


But her long-term partner had been diagnosed with an incurable glioblastoma in February 2020 and had taken advantage of California’s “death with dignity” laws to die that May


Mom left San Francisco, a city she hated for the 20 years she lived there


her voice animated only when she was describing a plan to smite anyone responsible for a grievance by writing a furious email or leaving an angry Yelp review
A hater fueled by anger? Her only "appropriate" outlet?


Mom had a history of starting projects and then abandoning them. Over the years, her Farsi and Japanese had stayed at a beginner level, her massage-therapy degree went essentially unused, the beginning of her dissertation for an anthropology Ph.D. on upper-class lesbians sat in a stack of neatly filed index cards.


Later, she tells my sister that part of the reason she has decided to kill herself is that my sister does not love her enough.


In August, she sends me a final birthday card. On the front, it reads MAY ALL YOUR VENGEFUL WISHES COME TRUE. She has written on the inside, “Dear Pussycat, I think this is the best birthday wish ever. xxoo. Mommy.


my grandmother was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Later, one of my half-sisters will mention that when I was a toddler, my mother told her, outraged, that her doctor had suggested my mother, too, had BPD


Just unsubscribing from Politico

Just unsubscribing from Politico

Just unsubscribing from Politico


We hand her the photo of her partner that has been on her bedside table for years, and she tucks it under her shirt

etbass said...

Narr said "Twenty years ago today, and decades late as far as I'm concerned."

Wow. Just WOW. It's none of our business but you did raise the subject. What did your brother do that gave you that opinion of him? Just one thing... the worst?

n.n said...

A wicked solution to a hard problem: a life that is no longer viable. It is still, selectively socially taboo to abort you after birth, so I will self-abort at the equitable and inclusive neighborhood Planned Parent/hood with affirmative action. Who cares about the destination and all the minor "burdens" who evolved in transit.

tommyesq said...

Don't worry, no slippery slopes or anything....

Vonnegan said...

I read the entire article. Wow, her mom was absolutely crazy and cruel her entire life. What an awful woman. I understand why the writer didn’t try to stop her, and also why she still felt bad about her mother’s death.

Before I read it I thought maybe this was the type of situation where you sneak some Lexapro into mom’s coffee every morning in the hope she gets better. But no. That woman was deeply damaged and cruel, and seemed (going on the writer’s POV alone) to do her best to damage everyone around her.

To me suicide is always wrong, but I’m not sure I’d try to stop a person like that. I might not be that much of a Christian. Ugh.

LuAnn Zieman said...

I would suggest that had she cancelled her subscription to Politico long ago she may have felt she had something to live for!

The Godfather said...

I imagine St. Peter at the Golden Gate to Paradise, and a newly deceased soul appears to ask for admission, and Peter checks the records and he says, You're early. We weren't expecting you for 10 years. And the Applicant says, Well, you see, there were these situations . . . .
And Peter says, go sit over there in the Waiting Room until your time has come.

I also imagine Jesus sitting down with the delayed Applicant, and after explaining things (He was good at that) inviting her in.

mccullough said...

Typical Boomer

Narr said...

For those who are curious, my brother, who should have been his widowed mother's and grandmother's strongest support, spent most of his time scheming and sometimes succeeding to relieve them of their money. With lies, threats, and (I have little reason to doubt) physical force.

I'll leave aside the bullying and humiliation he visited on me, almost four years younger, who replaced him in the affections of his elders by not being him. Like Bush and Obama; I was no angel, but never: hotwired and wrecked cars, got caught shoplifting beer and forced to choose between probation and the US Army at age 17, got busted for various drug crimes including burglarizing drug stores . . . and more, that cost legal fees and bribes (I found out later). OTOH he had been a G&C Eagle Scout and got an honorable discharge, which I also never did.

He spent his last ten years or so a married man, after he found a woman with some money who was pathetic enough to find him a catch. My younger brothers tried to warn her, but she just thought they were indulging in fraternal exaggeration. I encouraged her, since it looked like the thing most likely to get him off our mother's couch.

He died of polypharmacy (like Elvis), on his wife's couch where he slept, with his loaded pistol under the pillow. My next brother had to remove the evidence of his last binge and the loaded gun before they called the ambulance.

My only regret is that he has no grave I can piss on.



Narr said...

Long ago, one of my wargaming friends volunteered to man a suicide hotline. He lasted one shift.

I don't know what he expected.

Sheridan said...

A new vector for Planned Parenthood! Death to everyone asked for or not! Gotta change the name though. "Planned Personhood?" Corporate Slogan - "We got you covered coming and going"! The American equivalent of the Wagner Group.

Mason G said...

"The world was going to hell, and she did not want to see more..."

The world doesn't have to be going to hell. The fact of the matter is- the world a 74 year old grew up in is gone and not likely ever coming back. This is not to excuse abandoning one's remaining years on this earth- years many, many others would be ecstatic to have the option to experience.

For most of the existence of the human race, the world you were born into is the one that saw you die. It's only in the most recent past that changes have come so fast- my grandparents were all born before manned flight existed and two of them were alive to watch a man walk on the moon. Being nearly the age of the lady in the article, I find myself thinking about how things were all those years ago and at times, it's- well, not exactly depressing, but there's a kind of sadness for the loss of that past. Not anywhere near enough to consider offing myself, but still...

Will Cate said...

I do think the age of irony has come and gone. Just not feelin' that ironic warmth out there in the world nowadays. A new age of grimness is dawning.

Nancy said...

How illiterate are writers at the New Yorker? Did they ever read "Bartleby"? He didn't eat ginger nuts, it was the office errand boy nicknamed Ginger Nut who did so.


I once met a basset hound named Bartleby. As in: "Time for a walk!" " I would prefer not to."

Doug said...

Well ... 'bye.

TaeJohnDo said...

Narr: Sincere thoughts and prayers for you and all affected by your brother.

M Jordan said...

I read the article. All I can feel is contempt for this woman, this “mother.” The self left unchecked ends up a monster.

EAB said...

My first thought was deep depression. Then I read the article…it just seemed she realized no one was interested in her anymore. At least not in the way she needed. Everyone else had a life that didn’t revolve around her.

RigelDog said...

{{{ It’s the daughters’ fault for not giving her grandkids. And if the old biddy still wanted to end her life despite the love children bear towards their grandparents then she didn’t deserve to live.}}}

It seems as though nobody read the article.

The woman who suicided had been married, had many affairs, both with men and women, and eventually settled in with a long-time lesbian partner. That partner died of cancer a few years ago and the mother got tired of life.

The mother had her own mentally-ill and neglectful mother/parents. The mother was selfish and almost definitely a borderline personality. Her two adult daughters HAD children of their own and had their mother to visit with them regularly. However, the mother didn't enjoy her grandchildren particularly.

It's unconscionable to me that, despite being cold to her daughters throughout their lives, she enlisted them to accompany her to Switzerland and to hold her hand while she died from IV-administered drugs. So unfair to put that on them.

catter said...

I hope that Club Meh's application process requires resume, reference letters, and essays.

Amadeus 48 said...

Sad story. She should have tried life without Politico.

There is a really strong argument that we are living at the best time in history--sanitation, medical knowledge, wealth across the world, food availability, transportation.

John D. Rockefeller didn't live as well as most Americans do today. There are some dimwits trying to take it all away, but the best is yet to come.

Iman said...

That is a horrendous story, narr. He sounds like a despicable individual.

Bunkypotatohead said...

It's just the latest trans fad, transitioning into a corpse. Soon to be a civil right, guaranteed by your Gov't.

wendybar said...

Michael Fitzgerald said...
Subscription to Politico? There's the problem- mommy's an AWFL.

5/13/24, 3:27 PM



THIS^^^^ 100% THIS^^^^^^

wendybar said...

Michael Fitzgerald said...
Subscription to Politico? There's the problem- mommy's an AWFL.

5/13/24, 3:27 PM



THIS^^^^ 100% THIS^^^^^^

Leland said...

"The procedure, or the appointment — none of us seem to want to say the word death — has been moved from Thursday morning to the early afternoon."

Sorry, the tech is having complications with their first call this morning. Will you be available from 12-4 later today?

Yancey Ward said...

Soon to be a civil right, mandated by your Gov't.

Fixed that for you.

Narr said...

Thanks, TKJ and Iman (and anyone I may have missed).

Yes, my late older bro was a piece of work--at least my mother got fourteen years of relief before she died in '18 at age 91. (Think: 15 years of marriage and 55 of widowhood. I can't imagine a woman of my generation living like that.)

I wouldn't have posted about it if not for the coincidental anniversary.

Skipper said...

"Holy Sonnet X"
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and souls deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better than thy stroake; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.[1]

Tina Trent said...

I have watched too many people struggle in such painful ways to stay alive to say this is one despicable bitch, putting her children through this.

At least our limited medical resources are freed of one despicable bitch.

I bet a Restoration Hardware catalogue would have pulled her out of her evil funk. Did she even bother to donate organs to tbose who fight to live?

Tina Trent said...

Big Mike: read the artic!e or shut the fuck up. Your comments glare with the stupidity of herpes sores.

Just trying to relate, big boy.

Tina Trent said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Blair said...

Nothing of value was lost.