death Archives

Friday

April 3, 2026

What the death of my beloved son taught me about Easter

The hawthorn hedges are white with blossom; the countryside looks set for a wedding. Even in the small garden of my hospital, spring is inescapable. Cherry and magnolia bloom. Viburnum scents the air, young leaves come to the trees. Hospitals are where most lives begin, and where many end. Hospices shepherd only a small minority of deaths, about one in 20, often those of the middle aged whose diseases are more predictable. Frailty is less orderly, and the fitful hazards of age bring many to the general wards where I work. More of us die in hospital than anywhere else. What sort of spring wakes the hedgerows and the weeds,

Sunday

March 22, 2026

Simon Ings

The art of aging

More than 30 contemporary artists have contributed to the Wellcome Collection’s latest exhibition, which asks what it’s like to age at a time of unparalleled longevity. But as so often happens at the Wellcome’s exhibitions, it’s the ephemera that draw the eye first. “These 2 men are the same age,” says a leaflet advertising Kellogg’s All-Bran breakfast cereal. “One has driving power – energy – the will to succeed. The other is listless – tired all the time – it is an effort for him to plod through each day’s work.” The point being that aging is, to a not inconsiderable degree, something we do to ourselves, and something we

Tuesday

February 24, 2026

Bill Kauffman

The life of Karl Zinsmeister

It’s strange interviewing a friend who is dying, but Karl Zinsmeister is at peace. I met Karl in Washington, DC, in the spring of 1981, when we two Upstate New York hicks were new to the staff of Senator Pat Moynihan. The first thing I learned about him was that he and his girlfriend (and later wife) Ann, while on some do-gooder mission in Africa, had wandered into Tanzania and been held on suspicion of being spies. (They weren’t.) Karl threw himself into both intellectual and manual labor with fierce enthusiasm, doggedness, even hard-headedness. Over the past 45 years he has edited magazines, renovated ruined tenements, been embedded in Iraq,

Thursday

February 19, 2026

Gage Klipper

Missing Cowboy, our great farm manager

Life in the country is unforgiving. Animals die, labor is unceasing and nature fights back at every turn. We say losing a beloved horse or a loyal farm dog is like losing a member of the family. But while the pain is real, it’s certainly not the same as losing a dear friend. Our long-time farm hand died late last year. He was not an old man by any means and he had the vigor of a younger man still. By the grace of God, he passed away peacefully at home in the small cottage just down the road from the farm. I’ll call him Cowboy, because in truth, that’s

Friday

January 9, 2026

Katherine Dee

My father gave me the internet

My father went into the kitchen for a cookie, then disappeared into his home office for a phone call. He was arranging a surprise for my mother – hired waitstaff for Christmas Eve dinner, one of the biggest our family would have hosted. Then he died. It took 15 seconds. We found him within minutes. The waitstaff called back 11 times over the next two days. I thought they were debt collectors. Finally, I went into his office, where we had found him, picked up his phone, and yelled, “He’s gone! Stop calling!” That’s how I learned what he’d been doing. They were trying to confirm. And in the corner