Too Soon to Say Goodbye by Art
Buchwald
An Optimistic View Of Death
When doctors told Art Buchwald that his kidneys were kaput, the renowned
humorist declined dialysis and checked into a Washington, D.C., hospice
to live out his final days. Months later, “The Man Who Wouldn’t Die” was
still there, feeling good, holding court in a nonstop “salon” for his family and
dozens of famous friends, and confronting things you usually don’t talk
about before you die; he even jokes about them.
Here Buchwald shares not only his remarkable experience–as dozens of
old pals from Ethel Kennedy to John Glenn to the Queen of Swaziland join
the party–but also his whole wonderful life: his first love, an early brush
with death in a foxhole on Eniwetok Atoll, his fourteen champagne years in
Paris, fame as a columnist syndicated in hundreds of newspapers, and his
incarnation as hospice superstar. Buchwald also shares his sorrows:
coping with an absent mother, childhood in a foster home, and separation
from his wife, Ann.
He plans his funeral (with a priest, a rabbi, and Billy Graham, to cover all
the bases) and strategizes how to land a big obituary in The New York
Times (“Make sure no head of state or Nobel Prize winner dies on the
same day”). He describes how he and a few of his famous friends finagled
cut-rate burial plots on Martha’s Vineyard and how he acquired a Picasso
drawing without really trying.
What we have here is a national treasure, the complete Buchwald,
uncertain of where the next days or weeks may take him but unfazed by
the inevitable, living life to the fullest, with frankness, dignity, and humor.

“[Art Buchwald] has given his friends, their families, and his audiences so
many laughs and so much joy through the years that that alone would be
an enduring legacy. But Art has never been just about the quick laugh. His
humor is a road map to essential truths and insights that might otherwise
have eluded us.”
–Tom Brokaw
Personal Review: Too Soon to Say Goodbye by Art Buchwald
Over the past four decades our ideas about the human dying process
have developed, formed by at least four major thinkers: Cicely Saunders,
originator of the hospice movement, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (Death and
Dying), Irving Byock (The Four Things that Matter Most), and Mitch Albom
(Tuesdays with Morrie, The Five People You Meet in Heaven). Art
Buchwald's "Too Soon To Say Goodbye" belongs next to these four in the
death section of your library, sharing with them a focus on examining the
death process without judgment and with open-minded curiosity.
Buchwald's medical problems started with a stroke in 2000, which led to
chronic renal failure and the amputation of one leg. He learned in January
2006 that his condition had been worsened by the development of acute
renal failure and was now life-threatening. His options were thrice weekly
dialysis or death, estimated to occur within two weeks. Buchwald was
subjected to twelve dialysis treatments and then opted out, choosing a
hospice in Washington, DC as his home until he died. He dictated this
book as a diary of his experiences and feelings in the hospice, fully
accepting his approaching death and intensely curious as to what it would
be like. He was keen on sharing all of his experiences with those actually
present in his life, as well as with us, his readers. During the eleven
months between his death sentence and his actual demise January 17,
2007), he enjoyed meeting friends and celebrities in the common room of
his hospice and recording TV interviews and messages to be played to
audiences and family after his death. He also went shopping for cremation
urns, wrote a commentary on the high price of funerals, lined up speakers
for his Memorial Service, received cheesecakes by the dozen from well-
meaning friends, rallied for a summer vacation at his home on Martha's
Vineyard, and reflected on his life. While Buchwald briefly mentions the
trauma of having a remote father and an absentee institutionalized bipolar
mother, he does not dwell on his insecure years in foster care and his
recurrent depressions. His attention is on a confident understanding of the
reason he was put on earth: to make people laugh. The Pulitzer Prize
winning humorist is at peace within himself due to his understanding of his
raison d'etre and this is a gift which many, including Eddie (The Five
People You Meet in Heaven) do not receive until after death, if ever.
Buchwald enters his final year of life already well into Kubler-Ross's

acceptance stage. We have no glimpse of denial or bargaining. He is true
to himself, making us laugh until the end. He is unafraid.
This book will be of interest to all who work with the human mind and
spirit, but particularly to those who identify with Consultation-Liaison
Psychiatry and who consult on the dying. It is also appropriate for the
elderly or those approaching death, serving as a source of optimism and
an invitation to discussion of a subject that may be otherwise difficult.
Dr. Bazemore is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Family Medicine at
the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester,
Massachusetts.
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