Confronting the Reality of Death and Dying

In my last post, I talked about the death of my close friend David and the way he and his family and I confronted and dealt with his death. If you review that post, you will see that there are a number of things that you and those closest to you can do to make the ending easier. The first step in all of this is to recognize your own feelings about death. Avoiding our feelings does not work in our best interest or the interest of those around us. Being honest about our fears and anxieties is important.

We need to connect with and communicate with others. Isolating and going it alone usually only makes things more difficult for all concerned. Talk about how you feel. Express your feelings. Crying is a good thing and something that we should do in the grieving process. Take time to grieve. If we don't, we will usually later regret it.

I remember a young man I worked with a number of years ago who lost his mother suddenly. He threw himself into work and other activities to distract himself and never really grieved the loss. Six months later, he was feeling very depressed and wondered why. There were a number of factors, but the main one was that he had never really taken the time or the focus to grieve the loss of his mother, someone he loved dearly.

And don't engage in denial or wishful thinking. This is not helpful to you if you are the person who is going to die or to those around you. Honesty, in general, is the best policy. Being honest is one of the ways that you can take care of yourself and those around you.

Taking care of others is also a way of taking care of yourself. But be sure to take care of yourself in other ways. Caregivers often neglect their own health. They don't get enough sleep or maintain a reasonable diet. If you're going to be there for others, you have to be there for yourself first. Not doing this is one of the reasons that caregivers sometimes die before the person they are providing care for.

Try to find meaning and purpose in what is happening. As I mentioned with David, one of the benefits, if you want to call it that, of his death was that it brought his family back together. Seek support from others and from the people and things you value. David and his family found this through their religious faith.

Be willing to use humor in a positive way. As I mentioned in my previous post, my friend Bill and I enjoyed some of the last times we had together with David reminiscing about the things we had done and remembering the stories that David used to love to tell. Things don't always work out the way you think they will. Sometimes this is tragic and sometimes it is humorous. If you recall the movie Little Big Man, when the old chief goes out to lie down and die, it begins to rain. His friend tells him, "Well Chief, this is not a good day to die." The old chief then decides he will postpone his demise to another day.

The last thing I would say is to take care of your affairs and do some planning. Don't put off doing a living will or legal will. Taking care of these things in advance will be very helpful to those around you.

I hope the things that I've reviewed in this post will be helpful to you since all of us will confront at some point the death of someone close to us that we care deeply about. And we will all certainly at some point confront our own death.