WHILE we can talk about death and banter about it with apparent equanimity, sangfroid in the face of death is unimaginable. The frequently cited study of Elizabeth Kubler Ross on dying and grief places 'resignation' at the end of the process — but it is not some happy acceptance of what is to come.

It is rather the doleful reconciliation of oneself with the fact that one has no choice and that histrionics and paroxysm are all unavailing. The resignation that Kubler-Ross refers to is the capitulation of one who has been totally exhausted by the battle against the inevitable and has come to terms with its end.