January 20 | George V

June 3, 1865 - January 20, 1936: Age 70

"I pray to God my eldest son will never marry and have children, and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lillibet and the throne."

George V was the grandson of Queen Victoria and the grandfather of our current monarch (those of us who are British subjects). He ascended the throne in 1910 and ruled during the First World War, although it cannot be said that an English monarch actually "rules", given that he or she has no executive powers. Nevertheless the symbolic importance of the monarchy was, and is, critical.

Thus when the King's health suddenly deteriorated, it was a matter of international interest and importance. A heavy smoker, he suffered from chronic lung problems including emphysema and pleurisy. He took to bed with a cold on January 15, and within a few days was clearly dying. "The King's life is moving peacefully toward its close," wrote his physician, Lord Dawson of Penn, in a note to the Queen and her children on January 20.

In fact Dawson, recognizing that the King had reached an irreversible state, decided to hasten his end. In a private set of notes not published until 1986, he noted,

"At about 11pm, it was evident that the last stage might endure for many hours, unknown to the patient but little comporting with the dignity and serenity which he most richly merited and which demanded a brief final scene. I therefore decided to determine the end."

This decision was supported, he continued, by the family. (Euthanasia was and is illegal in England, but it was commonplace, although not openly discussed, in cases where the patient was beyond hope.)

The official story is that the King's last words were, "How is the Empire?" Another tale (never substantiated) is that, when the King was told he might soon be well enough to visit the seaside resort of Bognor Regis, he said, "Bugger Bognor!" In fact Dawson's notes reveal a different ending. As the nurse was giving the King a sedative that night, he mumbled, "God damn you!" He never woke up. Later, Dawson administered a lethal injection of cocaine and morphine. George V died at 11:55pm, in time for news of his death to make the morning edition of The Times.

Evidently God was listening to the King when he prayed that "nothing come between Bertie and Lillibet and the throne". The "eldest son" was of course the future Edward VIII, a handsome, popular man who flirted both with older married women and with facism. Within a year of ascending the throne, Edward VIII forced a constitutional crisis by proposing to marry an American divorcée, Wallis Simpson. When it became clear that the government would never accept the marriage, he chose to abdicate. His brother, "Bertie", became King George VI, who ruled until his death in 1952, when "Lillibet" ascended the throne as Queen Elizabeth II.

Sources: Wikipedia; Forbes, Malcolm, They Went That-A-Way, Simon and Shuster, New York, 1988.

December 1 | Bandit

July 2004 - December 1, 2007: Age 3

Bandit was the best cat. Everybody says their cat is the best, I guess, but Bandit really was the best, certainly the best of all the cats we've ever known. He was smart, affectionate, and a dangerous hunter of mice and birds. We had a game, where we would throw a hackysack back and forth with Bandit in the middle. Bandit would leap heroically three or four feet into the air, sometimes even catching it in midair (he always relinquished it immediately so that the game could continue — he seemed to understand that the chase is more fun than the kill). When a large rat got into our house he dueled it ferociously until it managed to slip out an open door, never to return.

Our decision to let Bandit be an outdoor cat was a calculated risk. We took it, feeling that his roaming, hunting ways were too much a part of his quality of life to confine him. Thus the whole neighbourhood knew him, knew him by name because he always wore an ID tag with name, address and phone number, plus two bells in order to give his small prey a chance to keep clear (although even with two bells he learned to stalk silently when he wanted to).

It was our neighbours who found Bandit crying between two houses across the road, and came to get us. He stopped crying when I arrived, but was holding his hindquarters awkwardly. We figured his leg was broken and, worried he would maul us if given a sharp pain (he was quite capable), simply presented him with an open-sided, open-topped basket. He pulled himself in with his front legs, dragging his hindquarters. His tail drooped over the edge.

The ride to the vet's was calm. He didn't cry once, just looked around with interest, and rested his head on my hands when I scritched him. I imagined he even purred a little. He was so calm, quiet, and affectionate that we were sure he'd be okay, which in retrospect was naive.

After a very long wait, the vet delivered the news: his pelvis was fractured in several places and, much worse, his spine was crushed. His hindquarters showed very little function when he arrived but had become completely unresponsive, even to strong pinching of his toes. There was some possibility of driving to Guelph (1 hour away) in hope of finding a neurological surgeon who might stabilize him enough to repair the broken bones, but life with his hindquarters in a cart and no control of his poo was not a realistic option, in our opinion, for our Great Hunter.

We couldn't be with him during the examination, and were shocked by his appearance when we saw him again. During the two hours since bringing him in, he had become shocky and unresponsive. He was sedated, of course. His gums, nose, and tongue were white, and his paws (including the front ones) were cold (his temperature had been 5 degrees Celsius below normal when we brought him in). He was in a large open cage at waist height, so we were able to stroke him, support his head with our hands, and scritch him under the jaw and chin. He knew we were there, responded very faintly to our caresses, but even as we stood with him debating the Guelph option, his energy/spirit palpably flickered and lowered. After a long and tearful goodbye, we asked the doctor to euthanize him. I rested my hand on his neck and side while the doctor inserted the needles into his IV. I felt a wave of energy move up my right arm, and he was dead.

I remember bringing him home from his litter at 12 weeks, three years ago. A friend and I drove him from Waterloo, 1.5 hours away, along with his two brothers whom she was adopting (and who now continue to rejoice in a full, happy, indoor-cat life). Bandit's two brothers cried loudly most of the way home. But Bandit simply assumed a Sphinx posture, crossed his front paws, and looked curiously around him for the whole trip. Much the same as he did during the last drive to the vet. His attitude, at rest, was always calm, alert, engaged. He was the best cat.

September 23 | Sigmund Freud

May 6, 1856 - September 23, 1939: Age 83

Freud loved a good cigar (whether just a cigar, or nothing more), and he smoked a lot of them: 20 a day. In 1923 he was diagnosed with mouth cancer, but he continued to smoke, even though he knew they were killing him (although the first breakthrough medical study linking tobacco smoking with health damage didn't come out until 1948, the link had been suspected since the 17th century).

The tumours started on his hard palate and metastasized to the upper part of the lower jaw and his cheek. He underwent more than 30 operations to try to halt the cancer and replace some of the affected tissue with prosthetics, but they seemed only to increase his discomfort.

In March 1938 the Nazis annexed Austria, and anti-Semitism in Vienna (including visits from the Gestapo and the cancellation of his passport) drove Freud and his family to flee to London in June 1938. His cancer advanced, and in March 1939, he wrote to Arnold Zweig, "There is no longer any doubt that we are dealing with a new outbreak of my dear old carcinoma with which I have shared my existence for the past 16 years. Who would turn out to be the stronger could not, of course, have been predicted." In June he wrote to Marie Bonaparte, "...the radium has once again begun to eat away at something...and my world is what it was previously, a small island of pain floating on an ocean of indifference."

In September he asked his friend, Dr. Max Schur, who had fled with him to London, to help him die. “My dear Schur, you certainly remember our first talk. You promised me then not to forsake me when my time comes. Now it is nothing but torture and makes no sense any more.” Schur administered three large doses of morphine in the space of several hours, and Freud died, an assisted suicide.

There is an interesting article on the website of the Freud Museum about Freud's attitude. A quote: “Freud did not just 'have' cancer, he formed a relationship with it which echoed the structure of numerous others in his life - from childhood playmates to later friends and colleagues.” Click here to read more, it’s worth your time.

Sources: BBC History, Jewish Virtual Library, Freud Museum