“COULD DEATH BE A QUALITY?” asked American author Kurt Vonnegut. “A place? Not an ending but an occurrence that changes those it happens to?”
Vonnegut, who died in 2007, published fourteen novels, plus short-story collections, plays and non-fiction. He had a full, varied, interesting life peppered with reminders of death. For example, on Mother’s Day 1944, he discovered his mother who had died by suicide; as a prisoner of war in 1945, he was forced to remove jewelry from corpses in Dresden, Germany, before cremating them; in 1984, he attempted suicide.
In the late 1990s, Vonnegut recorded 90-second fundraising “reports” on the afterlife for WNYC, the Big Apple’s public radio station. In 1999, these strange “interviews” of folks like Darrow, Hitler and Shakespeare were compiled into a slim volume entitled God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian. In the book’s introduction, Vonnegut writes, “I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddhist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort. I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I’m dead.”
(At an American Humanist Association memorial service for the American scientist and author Isaac Asimov, Vonnegut said, “Isaac is up in Heaven now.” He recalled, “That was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. It rolled them in the aisles.”)
Here are a few excerpts from God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian:
“My job is to interview dead people for WNYC, but the late Sir Isaac Newton interviewed me instead. He wants to know what [the blue tunnel] seems to be made of – fabric or metal or what. I tell him that it’s made of whatever dreams are made of, which leaves him monumentally unsatisfied…. Saint Peter quoted Shakespeare to him: There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
While visiting Heaven, Vonnegut “interviewed the poet Dr. Philip Strax. He died at the age of ninety on the same day as the baseball player Joe Dimaggio…. I found him at the edge of a crowd of frenzied angels who wanted their feathers autographed by Dimaggio.”
“In Heaven, you can be any age you like.”
“There are nurseries and nursery schools and kindergartens in Heaven for people who died when they were babies. Volunteer surrogate mothers, or sometimes the babies’ actual mothers, if they’re dead, bond like crazy with the little souls. Cuddle, cuddle, cuddle. Kiss, kiss, kiss. And the babies grow up to be angels. That’s where angels come from!”
“Thank god there is no Hell.”
Bottom Line: Kurt Vonnegut is up in Heaven now.
Next week: Necrophilia
Jusdt what I need to read now for a peaceeful, harmonious psyche. Thank you so much, Sandra Sharpe
Great philosophers. Can't wait for next weeks Necrophilia ..