Deborah Bogen

Oct 23, 2023 | pittsburghquarterly.com | Samuel Hazo |Fred Shaw |Alan Paul |Deborah Bogen

After meeting his doctor for his annual checkup, a 70-year-old patient told the doctor, “Checkups or no checkups, we all have to die one day. It’s just a question of when.” The doctor shook his patient’s hand and said, “Not when, but how.” That brief exchange reveals not only two different attitudes toward life but two different views of death as well. On the one hand there is the patient’s view of life as a time with a statute of limitations. His concern is with longevity.