Thomas Merton - Personal Life and Death

Personal Life and Death

According to The Seven Storey Mountain, the youthful Merton loved jazz but by the time he began his first teaching job he had forsaken all but peaceful music. Later in life, whenever he was permitted to leave Gethsemani for medical or monastic reasons, he would catch what live jazz he could, mainly in Louisville or New York.

In April 1966, Merton underwent a surgical procedure to treat debilitating back pain. While recuperating in a Louisville hospital, he fell in love with a student nurse assigned to his care. He wrote poems to her and reflected on the relationship in "A Midsummer Diary for M." Merton struggled to maintain his vows while being deeply in love with the woman he referred to in his personal diary as "M". He remained chaste, never consummating the relationship. After ending the relationship, he recommitted himself to his vows.

On December 10, 1968, Merton had gone to attend an interfaith conference between Catholic and non-Christian monks in suburban Bangkok, Thailand. While stepping out of his bath, he reached out to adjust an electric fan and apparently touched an exposed wire and was accidentally electrocuted. He died 27 years to the day after his entrance into the Abbey of Gethsemani in 1941. His body was flown back to the United States and he is buried at Gethsemani Abbey.