Protecting Access to Death and Preserving the Dignity of the Dying

I recently read a decent submittal about death culture - and it mentions how death is viewed in the United States, and how we as a country are considered a death-denying culture.  Its description I found to be quite accurate, and the section titled "One Day There, Three Weeks Later Gone" was especially eye-opening for me, as it relates to the recent pandemic and deaths related to it here in the West.   

In that section, it also talks about one man's death in the hospital after acquiring COVID-19, saying "he died in the hospital, no friends, no family.   One of his daughters came to town but she never, ever saw her dad again..." This separation - the isolation of the dying into quarantined cabinets of sterility - represents the West's desire to pursue the preservation of life at all costs - including the denial of family and friends at the dying man's bedside.    This basic human need - the need for comfort and love - is denied to us here in the West at the end of our life.  Physicians instead scramble to maximize opportunities for insurance billing (and profitability) by squeezing every drop of life out of each possible "treatment" - which may include painfully extending the patient's existence, but definitely not their quality of living.   

And then, there's the industry of death here in the West. The article talks about that, too.   Turns out dying is a huge industry here, and a shit-ton of money is made off death and the dying.      I've talked about that before as it relates to the language of death and also the stigma of death and dying.   So it's not new. The question is, how do we stop it?


I think there are a few things my culture needs to do to start looking at death in a different (less scary) way. 


Accept the Inevitable. 

The first thing we need to do is to accept that biomechanical death happens to us all. Period.  End of story. There is no avoiding it, no negotiating with it, no getting around it.  One day, the corpus that houses my consciousness will cease to exist.   And in spite of what some science may indicate, we are not destined to live forever in our physical bodies.  Our bodies are made from the same minerals found on our planet, and they decay. It is a natural process; one that has been going on since the Earth has been alive, and it will continue long after we are memories in the mists of time.      Resistance to this bring disharmony and discord, and that horizon is where we find our fear.   

Some may feel that accepting this is admitting defeat.  This is only true if you believe there is some final victory to be one.  But is there?  Is there anything at all to be one? Is eternal life in your physical body - with all its limitations and shortcomings - really something you want to be trapped in?   I certainly don't. Acceptance is the first step toward eradicating fear. 


Advocate for the Dignity of Death

Western healthcare, as I mentioned above, now maximizes profits over people - in all cases except a very few. This means that you (or your loved one) could be institutionalized in the name of "recovery" for something from which they are never really meant to recover at all.     Instead of fighting the end, why not instead approach it from a more holistic perspective? Why not ask instead "how can we make this individual's transition better and easier, and their last days more comfortable?"  These questions will serve us in appreciating the connection between human beings, and we can begin to choose dignity at the moment of our passing, instead of sterile environments that keep vital signs onscreen, but demoralize the spirit within. 


Talk About It

One of the biggest reasons that the US is seen as a death-denying culture is because we are encouraged not to speak of it.  When someone dies here, a hole opens up and seemingly swallows them and all that they have been, and behind is left a wake of grief and despair for their loved ones, who are told to "grieve, but then get over it."  This is a detrimental view of what happens when we pass, and let's not keep silent any longer. Let's talk about it!  

Talking about it does not mean we do not want to live.  It actually means the opposite! It means we value life and all of its fullness so much that we refuse to leave out any details of it from our narrative, including the event of our passing.   Let's not keep it hidden in the dark, where bad things hide.  The end of biomechanical forms is not bad; it is just change.  

And learning to speak of it openly, in the circles where we live, will reduce the harm it tends to cause when it is left in the darkness of grief and despair.  

After all, it is our right and privilege as humans to pass through the veil of this world and experience what lies beyond, and clinging to this life when there is no quality left to it denies us this honor. 


#death #dying #consciousness #eternallife #afterlife
It is our privilege as humans to pass through the veil of this world to the other side,
and clinging to this life when there is no quality left denies us this honor. 



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