'Dying Isn't Hard, Parking Is'

I was among the legion that visited Art Buchwald at the Washington hospice he called home for several months last year, and where he expected to die. He had chosen at age 80 to forego dialysis and accept his fate. Except death didn't come. His weakened kidneys rallied and so did his spirits.

He turned the sunny day room where he held court into a European salon reminiscent of the era when he wrote from Paris for the New York Herald Tribune. All sorts of people came by to pay their respects. And Art loved it. He sat back in a reclining chair, enjoying the accolades, his leg—that had been amputated below the knee—propped up on a pillow. "Dying isn't hard, parking is," he would tell visitors.

Art was having such a good time that some of the professionals at the hospice worried he wasn't taking the business of dying seriously enough. Art wasn't religious, but he thought of himself as a cultural Jew and spent time with a rabbi, planning his funeral service. He thought that was enough, but concern for his spiritual life continued. In part to humor the chaplain on the staff, Art agreed to meet with other religious leaders. He figured he might as well cover all his bases. And so he agreed to have the chaplain bring in a Catholic priest. It turned out the priest was a big fan. He especially loved the columns Art wrote lampooning President Nixon during Watergate. They talked politics for most of an hour while the chaplain looked on somewhat glumly.

Talking politics isn't a textbook definition of spiritual search or renewal, but it worked for Art even though he had disappointed the chaplain. "I think she thought the priest would say, 'Let's pray,' or some B.S. like that," he said later.

Losing part of his leg because of circulation problems was hard enough, but when his doctor told him he would have to undergo dialysis three times a week, he decided that wasn't how he wanted to spend what remained of his time on earth. His family tried to talk him into continuing the treatment, but he never wavered, entering the hospice last February with the expectation that he soon would die. Much to his surprise—and to the surprise of his doctors—the anticipated end did not come. His kidneys functioned enough to sustain him for another 11 months. He attributed this added life dividend to the McDonald's parfaits that he consumed every day. Or maybe it was the corned beef sandwiches. When word got out that they were a favorite, 10 arrived at the hospice the next day. "Everybody wants to please me," he wrote. "Food seems to be very important, not only to my guests, but also to me."

Art's appetite for food, and for life, sustained him and all those who encountered him. Visitors began to wonder what he was doing in a hospice, where the typical patient spends only a short time, and there is no future. Art was talking about going to his beloved Martha's Vineyard for the summer. He began to refer to himself as "the man who wouldn't die." Medicare had been footing the bills but after six months, they cut him off. Art was the first to admit this was beginning to look like a scam, and it made for a great column. For a time he picked up the tab. It was about what a suite at the Ritz-Carlton would cost, he told me. When summer came, he flew to Martha's Vineyard in a specially equipped charter plane arranged by his son and daughter-in-law.

By then he had a book contract to write about his remarkable comeback. He was excited at the prospect, holding court on the veranda of his home and debating whether the title would be "Heaven Can Wait" or "Too Soon to Say Goodbye." His neighbor, singer-songwriter Carly Simon, would compose a song with the same title, he told me. He'd already dictated several thousand words before leaving the hospice. And that was in addition to keeping up with his weekly column satirizing political life in Washington. Those who had known Art over the years marveled how happy he was. There was no sign of the depression that had periodically afflicted him and two of his best friends and neighbors on Martha's Vineyard, newsman Mike Wallace and author William Styron. They called themselves the Blues Brothers.

The procession of visitors continued throughout, prompting Art to muse he never would have gotten this kind of attention had he done dialysis. The first time I met Art was over lunch at the Sans Souci, a fabled Washington restaurant that no longer exists. It was crowded; there was no privacy; you could barely hear yourself talk. Art loved it. It was all about seeing and being seen. That's how he lived, and that's how he died, last night, at the age of 81.