Appreciation

By Sherwin Nuland

Sometimes, all it takes is a few words. Dr. ELISABETH KUBLER-ROSS gave us five of them, and with that gift she brought a sense of order to the chaotic jumble of powerful emotions evoked by the realization that death is inescapably approaching.

Though feisty and outspoken in person, Dr. Kubler-Ross wrote with a voice that was both soothing and gently authoritative. Few books have had as profound an effect on public dialogue as did her 1969 blockbuster, On Death and Dying, written at a time when the topic was rarely discussed in public and studiously avoided at the bedside. Fear not, she reassured the tens of millions who would read and then quote her teachings: the human mind has the wondrous capacity to prepare itself for dying, by a progressive series of five steps--denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, finally, acceptance--that ultimately lead to a peaceful resolution.

To debate the details or the validity of Kubler-Ross's thesis--or to disparage her later flirtation with spiritualistic thinking--is to miss the point of her life's work. With a single book and a vigorous campaign of proselytizing, this remarkable woman gave permission to an entire generation and its successors to speak openly about our greatest fear.

--DR. SHERWIN NULAND, clinical professor of surgery at Yale University and author of How We Die