Why would anyone want to talk to their dying loved ones about death? Isn’t it morbid? Won’t it make people uncomfortable? Shouldn’t we focus on something more “positive” instead?
Three hours prior to my deadline for this column, my mother died peacefully at home, surrounded by loved ones.
Even though it was very hard to see her go, knowing all the details of her end-of-life wishes made a tough transition easier.
While this experience is still so fresh in my mind, please allow me to share five good reasons why death conversations with the living are so helpful, compassionate and wise:
1. Talking about death brings people closer.
When we talk to our loved ones about future death — theirs, our own or both — it brings a quality of the sacred into the conversation and creates a special kind of union.
By sharing life experiences, asking questions and listening to one another, each is strengthened and feels less alone.
This is one of the best parts of attending a Death Café or participating in a Conscious Aging class — the opportunity to intentionally talk with others who are like-minded and to ask questions and share thoughts that bring death out of the shadows.
2. We are mortal beings.
Each of us is born into a family and a world, and we will each die one day, leaving our family and the world behind.
By trying to ignore this reality, we give death far more power than it deserves.
When we don’t allow death into our conversations, we actively work to deny its presence in our lives.
When we bring it into the open, however, death takes its place as an important, but natural, part of the human life cycle.
3. The young and elderly live segregated lives.
Our culture worships youth and dreads old age.
These attitudes impact the elderly who are too often separated from society and warehoused in sterile environments devoid of natural beauty, flowers, animals and the younger generation.
Such segregation is unnatural and saddens me; a society “… that equates aging with the tragic loss of youthful vigor makes the idea of aging as a virtue hard to accept … and the belief persists that old age is a fatal defect that must be avoided for as long as possible” (“What are Old People For?” by William Thomas, M.D.).
By talking and reading about death, we benefit from listening to each others’ opinions, thoughts and feelings about it.
This, in turn, helps us all — young, old and in-between — prepare for the inevitable.
4. Transitions require forethought and plans.
We prepare for many significant life transitions, investing time and money in recognizing births, weddings, graduations and retirement.
Death, too, is a transition, but we rarely actively prepare for it.
Not only does it help to have a pre-paid burial/cremation plan, it’s wise to start a pre-death file box containing some items such as:
• A Last Will and Testament
• A Durable Power of Attorney
• A Durable Healthcare Power of Attorney
• A Living Will (aka Advance Directive)
• A list of internet-related passwords
• A list of all credit cards
• Any desired memorial/funeral readings, songs or speaker
• The contact information of people to contact upon death
5. We need reminders to be grateful for the gift of life.
We all walk on Earth knowing that death is near us at all times and that nothing in life stays the same or lasts forever.
Facing death means we can prepare for it while we are healthy and alive, so that we don’t waste a single chance to live a meaningful and purposeful life, and to show our love to those who are important to us.
We are meant to live with continual transitions.
We can find comfort in the words of Kahlil Gibran, the famous Lebanese poet, who wrote, “If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.”
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Issues of Faith is a rotating column by five religious leaders on the North Olympic Peninsula. The Rev. Kate Lore is a minister at the Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Port Townsend. Her email is katelore@gmail.com.
