Daniel
It’s all a fantasy.
“It was one day, I don’t remember the
If you want me to tell you what I
day right this very second, I was probably
believe in, I think I would believe in just
feeling, of realizing that I would die one day
fantasy. There’s an abyss involved, but I
6 or 7 or 8… but the anguish of thinking, of
was overwhelming. I didn’t confide in any-
one about this, these feelings. I mean, I just
couldn’t. If I would be giving advice to my
younger self, I would very simply say, “Not
to worry”, that things are much more normal
and natural than people make them of.
I really think that the big mystery, the
big mystery, comes from the moment we
about nothing at all. Really truly. It’s all a
don’t feel it. The more each day passes
I feel less resentful. Resent is not some-
thing that is part of what is happening to
me. I’m not angry. I feel I don’t criticize
the world as I used to. I feel I accept
the world as it comes and it goes. And
I don’t think it’s that important, the world.
I always thought that in the end one
are born. Where are we coming from and
is afraid of dying, and I may very well be
ourselves that is already sealed upon this
now, this very minute, I kind of have the
how do we form this geometric profile of
birth, from way before? Instead dying is
much more concrete.
eventually. But as far as I can tell you right
feeling, the idea that it is not going to be
a major event. It’s just going to happen.”
Introduced through Hospice by the Bay, Daniel and I met weekly in his room in a high-rise
SRO block in San Francisco’s SOMA. A graduate of Harvard University and friends with
Spanish royalty, Daniel lost all of his wealth when he was cut out of his father’s business
empire and struggled with mental health issues. Now sharing hallways with the city’s most
disenfranchised residents, Daniel would still go for caviar and champagne once a week us-
ing money from his estranged son. Daniel was adamant that death did not trouble him and
that he was simply letting the “gentle flow of a river” carry him towards the end. Several
weeks after our interviews were completed, I went to visit him at Coming Home Hospice in
San Francisco. In floods of tears and wrecked with terror, Daniel held onto me like a child.
The next day, on July 22, 2015, Daniel died alone in his room.
34 | ART OF DYING