I have experienced a great deal of death in my life from my favourite Aunt who committed suicide when I was ten because she was no longer physically able to care for my infirmed Uncle, through my parents who died when I was twelve and twenty-two, to two siblings in the past few years. Most of my experience with death has been with the drawn out process of terminal illness, with the exception of my Aunt and my boyfriend Don, who died of an accident when I was twenty. I’m not a medical doctor, a psychologist, a sociologist or a philosopher but believe I can speak with some authority on the subject of death from having stared into its eyes more times than many people my age. I am not frightened of death, though I’m in no hurry to meet it. I am frightened by what it does to the living: the emotional pain, the senseless worry, the callous denial of its existence.
Medical breakthroughs have extended life far beyond what was possible in the past. Many people routinely survive horrific diagnoses and carry on to live long, rich, meaningful lives but we still haven’t reached immortality. We all know how our life will eventually end and that is with death. So why is it most people can not talk about death openly? Why is it still so uncomfortable, a taboo?
For centuries people shunned the dying and mourners who came in contact with the dead for fear it was “catching.” Widows could only come out in the dead of night because it was said, anything living they touched would wither and die. Intellectually most people know this is nonsense but yet many still behave that way. I’ve lost friendships with people who have a loved one with a grave diagnosis. Logically, they know I don’t carry death to all I meet simply because of my experience with it but why take chances, eh? I can cope with this but at times I feel this is a sickness greater than a life threatening terminal illness.
Our cultural fear of speaking of death and dying ill prepares us for our own demise and makes it all the more difficult for our loved ones to enjoy any quality of life they may have remaining when a doctor pronounces there is nothing further they can do, treatment-wise, for a terminally ill patient. I am disgusted by it. There is no sense to it. It makes me inordinately sad.
The saddest part of all is the effect it has on the living. Those who have suffered loss know what it is to not be able to discuss it in polite company, to bury their mourning. “Are they over their loss?” people will ask. The simple answer is, no. One never recovers from the loss of a loved one but they survive and sometimes they become better people. That simple revelation may make some, who have never lost a loved one, squeamish. It shouldn’t. The experience of mourning is inevitable (with the exception of children, who seem much more honest & adept at handling death). The one gift a person can accept from someone going through the mourning process is to listen and absorb their grace.
I have read it and seen it, time and again; when people are about to die, they have a “crisis of meaning.” What has my life meant? Even with death by accident, this is the “life flashing before your eyes.” Death happens and my inordinate sadness evolves from people unable or unwilling to accept that fact in their own life. The crisis of meaning is going to be all that much more difficult for them and for their loved ones when the day comes for them to say goodbye.
Palliative care has grown by leaps and bounds in the past fifty years. This means that someone who is dying can live largely without the pain, anxiety, loss of sleep, shortness of breath, nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting until their very final days. That innate fear we all have of going through that process is all but gone with modern medicine. I can promise you, as a witness, terminal illness shuts down the body, one organ at a time, in tidy order. The human machine is efficient and with modern care, death is often quite peaceful.
The primary cause of suffering among the dying is psychological distress (caused by loved ones who fear letting go) which undermines the capacity for pleasure and amplifies pain and other symptoms. It also impairs their ability to say “goodbye” on their own terms. Is that what you want for your loved one? Is that what you want for yourself?
I hope I won’t have a crisis of meaning. When people want to discuss their loss, I’m there because through them, I meet another person to love. That is another person who has touched my soul even though they may not be on this terrestrial plane to do it in person. That is their meaning.
Morrie Schwartz, who eventually died of the effects of Lou Gehrig’s disease, said it most succinctly, “Death ends a life. Not a relationship.” I wish more people understood and embraced that. Everyone from the tiny infant too young to overcome weakness to the century old grandmother is remembered and loved by someone. Don’t let old taboos interfere with celebrating that life or helping others mourn and thereby grow to celebrate it or you’ll learn to regret it when you reach your own crisis of meaning.
(Image from Mark Voorendt under creative commons license, Mourning Angel at the churchyard of San Miniato al Monte in Firenze, Italy)
