Living well is dying well

I have been thinking about death a lot recently. Not in a morbid, obsessive way but merely that is has been on my mind frequently due to various circumstances. My dad died a year ago, my alma-mater is on the brink of dying, many of my friends have experienced death in their lives recently, and mass shootings have continued to be a prevalent story in the news. After the end of my first semester with St. John’s, I was looking for a book to read that would be attainable in the break before summer term started. When gazing across my shelves, I found The Death of Ivan Ilyich, a very short volume I was able to finish in a day’s time.

As might be expected, this book does a wonderful job of bringing the reader to consider their own death. I have long considered the practice of Memento Mori, reflecting on one’s death, to be an important one, especially for Christians. The story of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a man who spent his whole life climbing the social ladder, always considering propriety and wealth in his choices, only to one day discover a pain in his side, indicating an unknown and largely un-treatable disease. After seeing multiple doctors and trying various treatments, it eventually becomes clear to Ivan that he is dying. Tolstoy tells us that "In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but…he could not grasp it.” He could not grasp it because, for Ivan, death was always in the abstract, something that happened to others, not him. He was distinct, different, not liable to mortality.

I think, however, that it is less likely that he considered himself immortal than that he failed to consider his mortality. Because of this lack of consideration for his death, he had further never considered his life. As his death approached, Ilyich recognized that his death would be “degraded by that very propriety to which he had devoted his entire life.” What Ilyich comes to know is that which Socrates knew: the unexamined life is not worth living.

Ilyich’s life was not so different from many of our own. He went to school and got a job, got married, sought promotions. Yet he was never satisfied. Like many, he was never bold enough to admit that he wanted to be unlimitedly wealthy and powerful but, even after achieving a sought after promotion he and his wife found that his new home was “just one room too small” and his salary “just a little bit less than what they needed.” What he had sought so earnestly and gained had quickly lost its luster. Nothing had ever satisfied Ivan Ilyich, he never had enough. He had spent his life seeking the fulfillment that status and wealth cannot bring. If what you have is not enough, nothing ever will be.

In his last days, Ilyich consoles himself by reflecting back on the best moments of his life, only to find that those things he truly treasured were not the things he worked so hard to achieve. What still held luster for Ilyich are the simple memories of childhood, unstained by the ambition he had so fully given himself to. The more his memories reveal his ambition, the more he is sickened by them. Ivan Ilyich looks clearly into the life he lives, sees how wasted on vain pursuits it has been, and, just at the moment of decision, rejects the truth he has seen and chooses “The Lie.”

Nearing the end of his life, Ivan Ilyich is still unable to be honest with himself and the people around him. Throughout this process, Ivan has been repeatedly disappointed by the inability of those around him to fully admit to themselves or to him that he was dying. He knew it and they knew it but they couldn’t say it to themselves. They were too committed the lie of polite propriety to say what was true. Retrospectively, Ivan knew the “vague impulses” to live honestly against the prevailing norms were the “real thing.” Everything he had ever worked for and accumulated was not the real thing but a “dreadful, enormous deception.”

Yet, in his dying moments, Ivan comes to see what truly matters. In the end, Ilyich is able to face his death through forgiveness. Though unable to vocalize this reality properly, the forgiveness he offers to those around him is what is able to cure his soul. After receiving the sacrament, Ivan has come to see the truth of that sacrament; that death is no more. Only after he rejects the thing for which he has lived his whole life can Ivan Ilyich find peace. Only in honesty about the thing that truly matters can he offer forgiveness and receive it as well.