A few years ago, Chester Nimitz, Jr., age 86, and his wife, Joan Nimitz, age 89, residents of North Hill in Needham, MA, took an overdose of sleeping pills and thus killed themselves.

To Americans over a certain age, the name Nimitz will reverberate. Like his father, the famous commander of the Pacific fleet in WWII, Chester Junior served in that same theater of war, eventually becoming an admiral himself. He later went on to notable success in the business world. His wife Joan, a native of England, was also distinguished and had been trained as a dentist before coming to this country.

In recent years both of them had experienced multiple infirmities. Among other things, Joan had become blind, while her husband’s heart problems had grown more severe. Approaching age ninety, they decided to take drastic action rather than face “physical limitations on our quality of life” and the continuing loss of independence.

Chester Nimitz was used to being in charge and did not welcome the sure prospect of losing his ability to control events. As Nancy Nimitz, the admiral’s  sister, told The New York Times, “They didn’t want to think in any way that their final days would be controlled by some whippersnapper internist at the hospital.”

Typical of him, Nimitz left everything in good order and even wrote a note threatening legal action against anyone who might try to resuscitate him and his wife.

I feel sympathy for this couple who lived their old age in the midst of such burdensome disease and disability. Were I confronted with the similar suffering, I might well be tempted to take the same lethal action.

As one who, last July, got up out of a hospital bed, stripped the monitoring wires from my chest, and successfully demanded of the resident in charge that he release me, I know how doctors and hospitals can impose their will on you. I can relate to Nancy Nimitz’ feisty (though somewhat ageist) statement about the young internist.

I do not want anyone’s life extended by technology contrary to their wishes. The prospect of being hooked up to a respirator, instead of being allowed to die, fills me with dread also.

Killing myself, however, would go against some of my deepest convictions. Even in a situation of great duress in extreme old age, doing so would violate my view of human life as a gift. In its catechism, my spiritual tradition affirms: “We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of.” That is the way I continue to see my own life.

But aside from such teaching, the action taken by the Nimitz spouses strikes me as expressing a kind of rationalism that leaves out vitally important considerations. It also seems rooted in some aspects of American culture that many of us older people, and others, consider dehumanizing.

In this rationalism, dependence is regarded as something to be avoided at all costs. Retaining control, no matter what, is exalted as a supreme value. Suffering is perceived to have little or no worth. Better to put an end to it all rather than undergo physical deterioration.

Does not resorting to suicide in old age when daily life becomes very difficult, suggest that the life of those myriad elders who have become dependent on others for care lacks meaning? I believe that we retain our dignity as persons, no matter the changes that may deprive us of control.

And does not suicide make of dying an isolated individual act deprived of social character? Ideally, at least, we die with family members, friends, and care providers around us to support us in our departure and, if possible, to receive our blessing.

Isolation from family members and friends also deprives them of taking some responsibility for our care and entering into our experience. Agonizing as it can be, some of these people will testify that the opportunity to provide support for dying people has brought out the best in them.

The writer Mary Pipher tells what it was like for her and her parents: “The pain and suffering were terrible. However, we all learned from it. I wouldn’t have wanted things to be different.”

I have had enough experience of death myself not to romanticize it. As a young man, I worked as an orderly at Boston City Hospital. Among other duties, I attended to the physical needs of dying men and bound up the bodies of these patients after they died. Later, I served as a chaplain in the same hospital, ministering spiritually to dying people.

If the time comes when I can no longer cope and face unavoidable suffering, I want to trust others to care for and about me. I also hope to enter into an experience that may contribute to my own spiritual growth and that of others. Resorting to self-killing as an alternative strikes me as a blow against the values that make life and death so precious.

Richard Griffin