Death

Because we have to, we accept the conditions of mortality: having means losing, being here means leaving. Seneca, a Roman philosopher, wrote to his old friend Lucilius, in Moral Letters to Lucilius: “You will die, not because you are ill, but because you are alive.” The idea, though people have known it forever, always comes as a surprise.

But we have never been able to have everything we want. The fact that we want what we cannot have is only a fact, not a surprise, not cause for despair. Sooner or later, we find ways to accept it. Edward’s way is to think about his friends’ future: “Each person who has fought this disease does it with his own weapons. When the people die, they leave their weapons behind. When I die, my friends are going to pick up my weapons.” Like Edward, people who are dying are often calm and talk quietly about death and their lives.

For the caregiver, this hurts badly. Caregivers want to resist the pain by trying to keep the dying person alive as long as possible. Lisa said, “I was fighting to keep my husband alive. I just didn’t want to give up. He said to me, ‘Don’t you know, Lisa, it’s just one sickness after another.’ I said, ‘Never mind. Just keep fighting.’” After a time, caregivers become a little better used to the death, and know they must let go. Lisa said, “I stopped fighting about two weeks before he died. I finally let him go, said to myself if he had to die, that would be okay. I didn’t want him to die. But I would not cling to him.”

At the end, people who are dying should be able to have with them the people they love. People who love someone who is dying should be able to be with that person. Lisa sat with her husband while he was dy­ing: “I held his hands and talked to him. I think he could hear, even though he seemed unconscious.

People tell those who are dying, “I won’t leave you. If I go away, I’ll come back soon.” They say prayers. They read aloud, often their Bibles. Some sing: a woman Dean knew sang gospel songs to her son while he died. Some, like Lisa, just talk, lovingly and reassuringly. When they find nothing to say, they sit quietly. Most importantly, they hold, touch, caress, hold hands. For both the dying and those left behind, the physi­cal presence of another person eases loss and loneliness. One hospital clergyman said that at death, the physical presence of another person amounts to a sacrament.

Maybe death is not so bad. We know so little about it. Why should it be worse than sleep? Socrates, a Greek philosopher who lived in the fifth century, was ordered by the leaders of his state to kill himself for insubordination. Socrates acquiesced, and he died after drinking poison. Before he died, he talked about death: “Perhaps death is something indif­ferent, perhaps desirable. It is likely, however, that if it is a transmigra­tion from one place to another, it is an improvement to go and live with so many great persons who have passed on and to be exempt from hav­ing any more to do with unjust and corrupt judges.”

“If it is an annihilation of our being,” Socrates continued, “it is still an improvement to enter upon a long and peaceful night. We feel noth­ing sweeter in life than a deep and tranquil rest and sleep, without dreams.”