THE FUTILITY OF TRYING TO BE STEPHEN SONDHEIM

He died the way he lived. Brilliantly.

At age 91, after seeing two Broadway shows on Wednesday and having Thanksgiving with friends on Thursday, Stephen Sondheim died peacefully at home last Friday morning. And he wasn’t even sick, just a little frail according to reports.  

Way to go Steve!!!!

Don’t we all want to die like this?  In extreme old age, healthy more or less, after a great show and dinner with loved ones, unexpectedly but quickly.  I sure do

 We writers in the field of aging are always asked by editors to come up with stories about old folks who are extraordinary, who show the world that getting older doesn’t have to mean getting decrepit.   We’ve all seen those stories about 80-something sky diving grannies.  I wrote one myself recently about an 89- year-old pole vaulter.

 Now we’ve got Sondheim’s example. 

Why am I thinking about this?   Because mortality is catching up with me.  I’m going to be 79 next month and I feel every year of it.  I’ve got a collection of diseases, any one of which could do me in at any time, and I’m playing whack-a-mole with my ailments.  As soon as I get one under control, another pops up. 

It’s impossible to NOT think about death at my age, yet this is a taboo subject no one wants to talk about.  A friend I had lunch with recently talked about conscious dying.  How do you manage that I wonder?   The obituary I read about Sondheim said his cause of death was unknown.  I suspect he might have written that ending for himself.

I’d like to mention here that when it comes to conscious dying—or aging for that matter—luck plays a HUGE role. OK, it helps if you take care of your health, but that’s just one piece of the puzzle.   

Sondheim’s luck started early.  He was an unhappy only child whose mother once wrote to him that she was sorry she had him.  That would have done in most children.  It might have been the end of him—he could have wound up a neurotic ne’er do well who never even knew he could write songs, much less become the creator of the modern Broadway musical-- but instead he wound up with Oscar Hammerstein as a substitute father and mentor.

  Oscar Hammerstein forgodsakes!! 

The musical comedy stars must have been aligned for this to happen. It was a lucky accident—for the world of musical theater as well as for Sondheim himself.  He went to school with Hammerstein’s son who became his friend. Not having much of a family life himself, he spent all his time in the Hammerstein home.  Oscar Hammerstein saw his talent and nurtured him, not only as a musician, but as a child in need of a nurturing father figure. 

How do you even get that kind of luck?   Most famous folks have at least one major figure in their upbringing who mentors or nurtures them, but it’s usually a parent or other relative.

  The rest of us stumble along with less--much less.   I’m tempted to feel sorry for myself here because I was also a lonely, only child and never had a mentor or nurturing figure to temper my harsh upbringing— much less a genius like Hammerstein.  But then I think of my foster daughter who grew up on the street, often without enough to eat, and I realize how privileged I actually was.

I wish amazing elders weren’t held up as role models to the rest of us.  It’s not fair—the dice are stacked—the genetic lottery is just that—a lottery.  Lady luck holds the cards, not us.   You are stuck with the family you’re born into, and you get old the way you are fated to get old. Then you die the way you lived. Most of it is a crapshoot.

  I love that Sondheim died the way he lived, with luck and flair--the ultimate showman.   I expect that I too will die way I’ve lived-- kvetching all the way.