We’re all going to die. Why is it so hard to talk about it?
Most of us don’t fear death so much as the process leading up to it.
"It’s not as if it’s a big secret that we’re all going to die. It’s just that for many of us, most of the time, it seems like an event that’s going to happen to someone else, some hypothetical me far in the future. Spiritual teachers in many traditions spend a lot of time trying to get people to see the foolishness of this perspective.
“To contemplate dying each day calls forth an instant reordering of priorities,” writes Kathleen Dowling Singh in The Grace in Aging: Awaken as You Grow Older. “Just like a quick and deliberate shake of a kaleidoscope, it creates a whole new patterning, a whole new view.”
I’ve seen that shake of the kaleidoscope happen many times in those who’ve received a terminal diagnosis. Even if they’ve managed to avoid any serious spiritual inquiry in the years leading up to that moment, death’s imminent arrival often focuses their attention. Most are able to let go of the pettiness, the anxieties, and the prickliness that may have plagued them for decades. Lifelong jerks get a little less obnoxious. Introverts start opening up. Extroverts shut up so that other people can speak without interruption. Almost everyone I’ve known near death becomes a little nicer, knowing they’re near the exit..." The Christian Century August 19, 2019
Yes, indeed, "teach us to number our days..." When I saw the title of this article I thought "true, but wondered, is the tide beginning to turn?" Twenty years ago who had heard of a death doula? While our culture is extremely death denying my hunch is that there are more people willing to face death openly,
Joanne's death certainly put my mortality forward in my consciousness. When I think of dying it isn't the death part that seems hard. What strikes me as difficult is thinking about all that I still want to do, which death would prohibit.
Takk for alt,
Al
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