I have to preface my article with the disclaimer that I did not know Nathan personally.
Last Thursday, I was reading the freshly printed edition of the Campus, and I found my attention drawn to the particular use of language in the piece about the planting of a tree in memoriam of Nathan Alexander ‘17, “who passed away last spring.” I took issue with the use of “passed away” in this situation. He didn’t simply pass away. This wasn’t an acquiescent fade into darkness, but an abrupt end by suicide. Humans have a complicated relationship with death. All animals – by virtue of biological programming – seek to avoid death, yet humans are unique in that they melodramatically dwell on the prospect of a final terminus to being.
We euphemize death, and that’s not necessarily problematic. But, in this case, our understandable considerations of sensitivity obscure the truth of the matter. To pass away connotes a peaceful journey to, presumably, something beyond this world. It presents a dynamism to something final. To say he passed away heavily implies a passiveness to the event, as if his death was the result of a meeting with some impersonal, cosmic force. But he did not die of natural causes. This anodyne language denies the all too human agency that so painfully defines suicide. This didn’t just happen. Someone did it. And acknowledging that isn’t easy.
The fundamental problem with using language generally reserved for the natural course of events is that it confers a sense of inevitability. However, Nathan’s suicide was not an organic event, but a wholly preventable act. He didn’t die due to the incessant shortening of his DNA or the relentless oxidative stress visited upon his body; his death was not one of natural, ineluctable bodily decay. Rather, it was a debilitation of spirit. Whereas the body cannot help but decay over time, the spirit can, and often does, remain forever strong. Indeed, the conflict of durability between the body and the spirit is the source of our aversion to these macabre topics. As Dylan Thomas writes, when we anticipate that the body’s time has come, and the spirit must inextricably follow it “into that good night,” the still sprightly spirit does not “go gentle,” but instead chooses to “rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Unfortunately, Nathan’s spirit could no longer endure life’s tribulations. We grieve so deeply precisely because we feel collectively responsible for having failed to elevate and sustain the spirit of a member of our community and to prevent this tragedy.
I think this nebulous language of “passing” is an indication of our propensity for avoiding discussing difficult issues. We prefer to keep things hush-hush, to sweep things under the rug, as it were. Our discomfort with suicide is the source of the silencing stigmas placed on it, but our attempts to mute the world, in some vague hope that equivocation will bring resolution, only allow problems to fester. No matter how strongly we feel about something, we cannot simply hope away misfortune, and rejecting reality – albeit a very human act – only has a way of making things worse. The dialogue around mental health is an important one. In the wake of this unfortunate event, I have heard promising calls to reignite such discussion. I just ask us to be more aware of the language we use, precisely because it’s often a product of habit, is insufficiently reflected upon, and how we use it reflects our as yet uncritically held beliefs. These conversations are obviously difficult, but those are the ones most worth having, and the ones that would most honor Nathan’s memory.
