Do you fear dying?

[Annie Sever-Dimitri]

Last week I met a lovely lady who works for a mortuary. Listening to her talk, I started to ponder our societal discomfort with death. Kick the bucket, buy the farm, take a dirt nap, pass.... however you say it, discussing death makes people as uncomfortable conversationally as dropping the F bomb in front of their mother. Why, I wondered. So I decided to ask you, dear readers of the Forum column.

What makes you afraid to die, if anything? How uncomfortable are you talking about it, especially around children? How do you think we can promote a less fearful stance about death and funerals in society? Or have you noticed this at all?

[Hazel "The Queen" Walker]

I am living to the age of 114 so meant I am almost at the 1/2 way point. My biggest fear in not death, my fear is that I will not achieve all the things in my life that I want to achieve. There is so much life to live, so many places to see, people to know, things to touch, adventures to seek, people to help and knowledge to soak up.....How am I going to get it all done.........I love life. When I am 100, I will be the old lady drinking a beer, playing the wii and making the staff crazy trying to keep up with me.

I do not fear death, I fear a life of obscurity, boredom, loneliness, a life in which I do not even come close to fulfilling my potential. When I am dead, I am dead.

Honestly, I really only have today, I want to live this day to its fullest and I cannot do that if I am afraid dying it will stifle me.

[Esther Wolf]

Hazel, "I do not fear death, I fear a life of obscurity, boredom, loneliness, a life in which I do not even come close to fulfilling my potential. When I am dead, I am dead." I totally agree with this!

[Robby Slaughter]

This is the second time I've caught you lying about your age on the Internet.

I understand that many of your clients and business associates might be prejudiced against you if they realized your true age, but it's not your fault that you are only 34.

Please stop lying about your age. Thank you.

[Esther Wolf]

This is a very interesting topic. I have thought about this and have discussed it with others many times. My only concern with death is what I leave behind. My family, friends, people I am very close to and how they will feel and their pain. I do know that there is a time for everything and God knows when my time is and I will be okay with that.

[Tom Davis]

In addition to my day job, for the past ten years or so I've had the privilege to do research on many of the people now buried at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis, and have led hundreds of tours around the cemetery visiting their graves. I've learned that those buried in the cemetery, in any cemetery, aren't just dead people, they are people who were once very much alive. They created literature and art, they were elected to office, they played jokes on their friends, they invented things or took advantage of various opportunities to make and lose fortunes, they cheated on their husbands and wives or they were exemplars of devotion. In short, they were just like us. I bet many of them would have joined Smaller Indiana if they were alive today.

Somehow, this has made me more comfortable with the idea of dying, and, as others have noted, of the need to appreciate each moment and each day as much as you can. Personally, I don't really think that death will be the end of me, but even if it is, life has been good. So I don't fear death, though there are certainly some ways I would prefer not to die.

Many of those who take these tours are in 5th grade, when they study Indiana History. In both the children and adults, I've seen a wide range of emotions stirred from "walking around so many dead people." I suspect that the kids that act afraid have learned that behavior from their parents and maybe a scary movie or two. Most seem to have forgotten their fear before very long, so I think that the more we treat death and dying as a normal, no matter how unfortunate that may be, part of living, the less we'll fear it.

I applaud your volunteering in a hospice. My wife did that in the past, including one or two ALS patients, and it certainly does make you appreciate life to a greater degree.

[John Karamanski]

"Upon my Death I wondered were the Universe had gone.
While we are free from it the Womb goes on and on"

[Tim Kern]

There is nothing to fear in death, though the likely pain of achieving it does keep my curiosity at bay. The process of dying, the heart of your question, brings up myriad concerns: the speed of the process, the "scheduling" of it, who (or Who) makes the decision, the surroundings -- all come into play.

Do I "fear" dying? Well, I certainly don't fear death itself, but inasmuch as I fear the unknown in so many dimensions, I fear the possible circumstances of my death.

I'm curious: why the heck do you wish to "promote a less-fearful stance... in society?" Death is the last condition in life in these United States that has a downside -- all other "bad" conditions have been socialized to a great extent. We can't starve, stay sick for long, remain homeless or without care, if we choose to show up on the social radar screen. The only thing our "society" can't fix for us is death. Why take away the downside there, too? Can't anything be a personal, independent decision any more? Does "society" need a "stance" on everything? Must we conform here, too?

[Robby Slaughter]

Good point Tim. Here's an article from The Onion on this topic:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/world_death_rate_holding_stead...

[Johnnie Firari]

In my high school and early college years I dealt with a friend or classmate being killed at least once every school year. It never truly hit me at that time in life because I was young and never really lost anyone I loved. Recently losing my mother has made me look at death different. I always valued life but now I value the life of others I love so much more. I have no fear of death but I do want to live along time because I love those around me so much. I enjoy my time with family and friends and feel I am in the best place I could ever be.

To help ease the fearful stance on death, get people to grab on to the idea of leaving some sort of work or legacy behind to know you have left your mark on this earth. Get people excited about making the world or at least the world around them a better place before they go. Sure we cannot all have our names in history books but we can leave a piece of our history with the people around us. What story would they tell about you and is this what you want to leave behind?

[Marty Thompson]

Hello Annie,
As a grad student in New Mexico, I also worked as an autopsy assistant at the Albuquerque VA Hospitial, perhaps in large part to confront my own thoughts about death. The dead can teach the living a thing or two. Death in and of itself is not to be feared, we all arose from nothingness, and return to it. I still fear dying, not so much as a process, but thinking about pain. Pain that it causes others. A car crossing the center line, a tree crashing next to your tent in the middle of the night, pick your scenario. Make your life a bit more contemplative regarding death, as our ancestors did, and thereby appreciate not only your own life, but all life. A great Sci Fi movie, Blade Runner, based on a Phillip Dick novel, brought it home for me. Replicants in the film had more of an appreciation for life, and the act of living, than their human counterparts.

[Annie Sever-Dimitri]

Tim,

As a former hospice volunteer, what I have seen is that people don't like to talk about death. The things they say to the bereaved are sometimes horrid. Well meaning, but horrid. Or they don't say anything, don't offer any support. My own experiences are similar. I had a social work graduate professor say to me, 5 months after my grandpa died, "Aren't you over that yet?" Please. The man had been an integral part of my life for 36 years! When my grandma died, my co-workers said nothing when I returned to work. Nothing. I just would like to see educational books or maybe classes about grieving, how to talk to kids about death, how to help the families and friends of individuals who commit suicide....these are just thoughts. I volunteered for St. Vincent Hospice for around 5 years, providing direct care to hospice patients, facilitating bereavement groups, and spending time with kids at the bereavement camp. People always asked me how I could do something so depressing. I just didn't find it depressing; it is a natural part of life, and I was so happy to be able to help. Family members and friends sometimes avoid a hospice patient, or keep the children away. So sad. I find comfort in the fact that I was there as much as possible when my grandparents were dying. I was in the room when my grandma died. I distinctly remember watching her vitals drop down to nothing, then noticing that it was 9:04 am on the clock. I was devastated, but glad to share that moment with her. I got to hold her hand as she passed from this realm of existence into the next. She deserved nothing less from me.

As far as society fixing everything, my view is that it doesn't. I am a former social worker whose job was to evaluate and admit potential psych patients. It was awful. I don't have the answers to the tough question of health care reform, but there are too many people trying to get help who just can't get it. Competent, adequate mental health care is basically for the wealthy who can self-pay. It made me sick, so I just got out of it. I don't see that normalizing talk about death is "fixing" it or causing people to conform to anything. Trust me, I am the last person who wants people to conform to societies notion of "normal".

Plus, I am also simply asking for the experiences and thoughts of others.