Part XI. Death
Don’t let the fear of dying ruin the rest of your life.
Fighting to live is not incompatible with preparing to die. Acceptance of the danger, even the inevitability, of dying is realistic, but does not preclude fighting to prolong life and enjoying as much as possible of what remains.
––John Roberts
Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?
Mine I saved and hold complete.
Do your joys with age diminish?
When mine fail me, I’ll complain.
Must in death your daylight finish?
My sun sets to rise again.
––Robert Browning
Continued living must always have a purpose. I hope that I will be willing to struggle to find enough new meaning and direction to keep going should I become severely ill and debilitated in the future. But if and when that struggle comes to an end and no meaning can be found or recovered, take the bed to the window and let me fly as quickly and painlessly as possible. If there is a next life, I hope it is as challenging, interesting, and filled with love and heartache as this one has been. If not, then at least there will be peace and relief.
––Timothy E. Quill, M.D., Death and Dignity, 1993
There will come a time in each of our lives when we no longer wish to fight. A noble surrender is most likely when we know in our heart of hearts that we have given our best effort. An incalculable number of prior events have contributed to your life at this moment and to struggle against the river of life is to struggle against all of nature. There is a time to swim and a time to allow the current to carry us to the next phase. In our surrender, we are only acknowledging what has been true all along––that nature exercises the ultimate and supreme power in our lives…. Surrender is the recognition that letting go will bring us what we have been searching for our entire lives––peace.
––David Simon, M.D., Return to Wholeness, 1999
We are all part of the universe. The atoms in our bodies were once part of our tiny, original, pre-bang existence that exploded and expanded over the time and distance of 13 billion light years. Over the past four billion years of earth, those atoms have passed through diverse oceans and living things until residing temporarily in our insignificant organisms. Soon those atoms will scatter to other homes and then new galaxies to carry on their eternal life. Death is merely part of this ongoing life, as certain and natural as birth. Therefore, it is not an unknown thing to fear.
I have dwelled in this book on using the final part of life to put aside all fear, worry, regret, denial, anger, depression, stress and everything negative, and fill that mind-space and life with self-respect, optimism, happiness, love, laughter, strength, determination and everything positive. In that way, we may receive the gift of a rewarding contemplation and permanent peace. It is happy to know that our dispersed atoms will someday be reincarnated in a river, a cloud, an eagle, a dolphin, or some part of another sun, all yet unborn. We will be born again, and we will continue to live as long as the universe. Our fragmentation and transition do not change our living existence.
There are as many ways to die as there are people who do, each a personal process that stretches back into the life of the individual. We live knowing it will happen and paying little attention to the whole idea. When good health turns to serious disease, we begin to think more about it; then, when the prognosis gets really bad, we get really serious about what we can do to postpone it and manage the consequences. We often recognize, belatedly, that we should have given the same intense attention to prevention and detection as we now give to cure. We turn our thoughts to all kinds of lament over the unhappier times and events of our past. But, the time near death is not the time for remorse; that valuable time must be devoted to the peaceful presence of loved ones, the final glimpses of rewarding experience, and the contemplation of self and future.
It is easy to find the joy in life when we are healthy, much less so when we are ill. The greater value of short time remaining will not be realized if we do not seek and manage the activities and feelings that give us secure happiness. We may treasure the growing anticipation of eternal tranquility.
