Euphemisms for Death

Euphemisms for Death
Marion D. Aldridge

Last week I was speaking at a conference of Retirement Community Chaplains. My thesis was that people who deal with the vicissitudes of life best tend to deal best with the reality of death. There are seventy-year-old men and women who seem to be surprised when their ninety-year-old parent dies. Death happens. Living beings have a 100% mortality rate.

   One of the sidebar conversations initiated by the chaplains concerned the euphemisms people use to distance themselves from the certainty of death. I think I would prefer to kick the bucket or croak rather than merely to pass on or cross over. My list is not exhaustive, but long enough to demonstrate our resistance to acknowledging that human life has a termination point. Interestingly, medical and religious people may be the worst at avoiding the obvious.

Asleep in Jesus
Breathed his/her last
Came to his end
Communing with the angels
Crossed over
Departed this life
Didn’t make it
Entered eternal rest
Entered into his reward
Expired
God called him home
His hour had come
In Abraham’s bosom
Laid to rest
Lost her life
Made her last curtain call
Met his Maker
Negative patient care outcome
No longer with us
Out of her misery
Passed
Passed away
Passed on
Resting in peace
Slipped away
Stopped breathing
Succumbed
Transitioned
Went to the Happy Hunting Grounds
With God now

[Editor’s Note: Randall Lolley tells of a group of friends who discussed writing their own obituaries and shared their own  self-written obits. Some had glowing language about their deaths for the headline, but one simply stated “John Doe….Dead”]

Marion D. Aldridge is a popular public speaker, workshop leader and an award-winning writer. His blog is found at  http://marionaldridge.wordpress.com

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