I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately. Not a popular subject I know, but it’s something that happens to everyone. We have a lot of cultural notions about how to live and how to die. Google the term “good death” and you will get a lot of ideas about what a good death is. There is the medical definition and then there is the popular notion, that a good death means the person dying was peaceful, cheerful, conscious, happy, surrounded by loved ones.
This is a nice fantasy, but not the truth for many people who die. Death is one thing, dying is another. Dying can be slow, messy, painful and, if the person dying is conscious, their death can often be made harder by the expectations of those close to them about their death.
We don’t often talk about dying. It’s taboo. That’s one of the reasons many people don’t get hospice care until just before their death, when they might have benefitted from hospice care for many months; people are too afraid to say “you’re dying.” I’ve talked to many people who hang on to “miracles.” “Oh, you can’t tell someone they’re dying, my aunt Carmela’s best friend had stage four lung cancer and she lived ten years.” We trot out the exceptions as if to say, if you try really hard and do things right you won’t die. Dying is seen as failure, framed in military terms. “Katie fought the good fight.” “Frank lost the battle with cancer.”
What if we gave up the notion that death is bad, and dying is worse? What if we talked openly and honestly with each other about death and dying, about our fears and our hopes? What if we stop seeing death as a failure and just accepted it as part of the natural cycle of life? What if those who were dying felt they could talk openly without being cajoled out of talking about it, without being judged, shamed, or told they’re being morbid?
As the old joke goes, “There are only two things certain in life, death and taxes.” I know some people avoid the tax piece, but none of us can avoid dying. Talk about it now. You might not die for another fifty years, or you might die before you finish reading this.
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