T

Illness and Fear of Death: I Prefer to Go

to Hell

he trip was bookended by funerals. We had to change the flight
itinerary to India and back twice because dear friends of Archbishop
Tutu had died. Although these were funerals for men who had lived good
long lives, it was a fitting reminder of death, and of the limited time each
of us has. Certainly illness and mortality are two of the great verities and
sources of suffering in our lives.
“Be careful—lots of my friends are dying,” the Archbishop said when
we had just arrived at the airport, wagging a finger at the Dalai Lama.
Then he went on to say what a great man Philip Potter, one of the
deceased, had been. “He was the first black general secretary of the
World Council of Churches,” he explained. But with the Archbishop,
sanctity and levity, death and life were close bedfellows, so even as he
was honoring his friend he began to tell a joke.
“He was a very formidable man, much taller than you and me.
Yesterday I was looking at his coffin. It was a massive thing. Both of us
would have gone in there. And I would have gone to heaven, and where
would you have gone?”
“Most probably hell,” the Dalai Lama replied.
The conversation about death and who was going to heaven and hell
was one of the jokes that they played with throughout the week, making
fun of their traditions and conflicting pieties.
I asked them to make the subject of illness and death more personal.
“How do you think about your own deaths? You’re both in your eighties,
and it’s a reality, or at least a possibility—hopefully far in the future.”
“Quite polite,” the Dalai Lama said, and laughed.
“Well, he doesn’t mind too much,” the Archbishop cut in, pointing at
the Dalai Lama, “because for him there’s reincarnation.”