On rage that lives alongside surrender
How we chose the poem for my mother's funeral
There is a lot of beauty in and benefit to releasing our grip on what we cannot control, embracing impermanence, and accepting death as a natural part of life.
BUT there is another just as reasonable response to death that needs to be discussed: rage.
Not every death comes at the end of a long, full, wonderful life. Some deaths arrive too soon, cruelly. Perhaps when a life is just beginning to flourish, in the midst of a great love or at the height of a career or achievement. These are the types of deaths that make us question endlessly what the meaning of life is and why bad things happen to good people. The type that makes you shout up at the sky and say over and over again: “WHY? WHY THEM? WHY NOW?” The type of loss that can completely transform your worldview and upend relationships in your life with people, money, and social norms.
My mother was one of those deaths. When she died at 57, she was at the top of her career, with two young daughters and a loving partner. She had a long, vibrant life ahead. But cancer took that future from her.
While she died peacefully—at home, on hospice, with her family by her side—she was not ok with the fact that she was dying. She wasn’t fearful or in denial of dying. Rather, she was devastated it was occurring. There’s no right or wrong in that response, just truth: a woman who was not ready to die, who tried every treatment she could, but the outcome was out of her control.
At her funeral, it felt fitting that the poem we turned to wasn’t a gentle elegy, but Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.”
What I didn’t know then, and only learned recently, is that the poem was inspired by a son’s furious, anguished plea for his dying father to fight.
Dylan’s father, David John (known as D.J.) was a schoolteacher in Wales who spent his whole life dreaming of becoming a poet but never did. Instead, he raised one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. And it was while his father lay on his deathbed that Dylan would be inspired to write one of his greatest works.
Dylan wrote this poem as he watched his father die. And, sadly, Dylan died as well, just a year or two later.
This poem shows us that creativity can be born directly from the fear of loss, as well as loss itself. Art is sometimes what we make when we cannot bear what is happening or has happened. Here’s the poem:
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
Poem by Dylan Thomas, 1951
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I’m curious: when you think about your own death, or the deaths you’ve witnessed, have you felt the impulse to rage, or the impulse to surrender? Or something of both? Has a loss inspired creativity within you?
— Maura
Maura, I so appreciate this reflection.
Rage can indeed have a place at the end of life and in grief. Rage that someone had to die too soon, as your mother did. Rage that a vibrant life was interrupted. Rage when a loved one faces a violent or traumatic death. Rage when there is no answer large enough for the question, “Why them? Why now?”
Death is not always roses and violins. Would that it were.
And yet, as you so beautifully name, there is no single “right” response. Some people meet death with surrender. Some with resistance. Some with fury. Some with peace. Many with all of it braided together.
Thank you for making room for rage as part of the human truth of grief.
I never felt rage when I lost my children—only numbness, profound sorrow, and grief. I lost an infant, and years later, my 33-year-old son, who left behind two little boys, just 2 and 3 years old.
Grief doesn’t disappear. It simply changes over time, ebbing and flowing. Some days it’s quiet, and other days it crashes over you without warning.
When I lost my husband and my father, I felt something different. Along with the sadness, there was a sense of peace and relief because their suffering had finally ended. There was still grief, of course, but never rage.
Everyone experiences loss differently. This has simply been my experience.