3 biggest regrets people have at the end of life

Hospice chaplain shares common regrets she hears from people who have less than six months to live.

By A. Pawlowski

Sitting at the bedside of dying patients, Tenzin Kiyosaki sees every day how regrets can haunt people at the end of life.

The former Buddhist nun works as an interfaith hospice chaplain for Torrance Memorial Medical Center in the South Bay area of Los Angeles, tending to the spiritual and emotional needs of people who have less than six months to live, and listening to their concerns.

When her brother, “Rich Dad Poor Dad” author Robert Kiyosaki, asked her what the dying talk about, she mentioned some of the common concerns she heard over and over. Kiyosaki shares them in her new book, “The Three Regrets: Inspirational Stories and Practical Advice for Love and Forgiveness at Life’s End.”

It’s also a nudge for younger, healthier people to take action to resolve or prevent regrets now.

Kiyosaki wants people to remember that death doesn’t only come to the old.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. — Steve Jobs

No one knows when their time is up, whether because of an accident or illness.

Life is impermanent not only for you, but your family, friends and loved ones. Kiyosaki’s own mother passed away suddenly at 49, leaving the family in shock.

“Understanding that death can come at any time can help you see how precious life is and how to really get on with our ambitions and our dreams, and to be kind to each other,” Kiyosaki, 72, told TODAY.

“We should clear the regrets now and go for our dreams rather than just hanging on to regrets that take up a lot of mental and emotional space.”

I did not live my life of dreams.

One patient always wanted to travel the world, but never did. “She felt like, ‘I never got out of here, I never got to do what I really wanted to do,’” Kiyosaki said.

For others, the “what if” regrets might center around never taking a chance on starting a business, applying for a dream job abroad or moving to a new city.

Kiyosaki urged people to examine whether they’re neglecting or putting off their dreams and if so, to turn it around and go for them now — it’s not too late. One terminally-ill woman she knew flew to Europe by herself despite all the obstacles in her way.

I did not share my love.

Many end-of-life patients are frustrated that they haven’t been able to share what’s really in their heart and say what they needed to say to their loved ones. For some, that might be “I love you.” For others, just being able to acknowledge, “I was absent, I was cruel, I was unavailable,” can transform a family and allow it to heal.

“I just feel like it’s important for people to see that they don’t have to live their whole life this way,” Kiyosaki said.

“Don’t fade away from life without saying what you need to say,” she writes in her book. “Find ways to say ‘I love you’ and express your love every day.”

I did not forgive.

This is perhaps the biggest regret many people have at the end. Old wounds and unfinished business rise to the surface, but holding on to past grievances hurts us, Kiyosaki writes, citing a quote from Buddha: “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else — you are the one who gets burned.”

The power of forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself.

Kiyosaki recommends an exercise: Imagine you have one year left to live. Who would you call? What would you do and say to be at peace? Do it now.

“If you just clear the regrets, you have so much more open heart and receptivity to the world,” Kiyosaki said. “Let’s turn it around and enjoy our lives because they are impermanent — we’re all going to face end of life.”

Complete Article HERE!

Should Everyone Have An End-Of-Life Doula?

By Anna Lyons and Louise Winter

On a crisp January morning, we carried Camilla’s purple coffin, covered in blooming yellow flowers, into the Art Deco chapel of a London crematorium as Leonard Cohen sang “Dance Me to the End of Love”. Her family and friends watched from their homes in New York City via a livestream link. They’d recorded voice notes in advance, which we’d uploaded to the music system. Camilla’s coffin rested on the marble catafalque, as their pre-recorded words of love, gratitude and admiration were played. As the curtains closed around her coffin, a recording of Camilla’s niece reading “Phenomenal Woman” by Maya Angelou echoed around the empty crematorium chapel.

Camilla lived a creative, vibrant and full life, surrounded by a wide circle of like-minded people. She died alone on a Covid-19 ward in a central London hospital. In the saddest and loneliest of circumstances, Camilla’s family and friends found a way to come together to say goodbye to the person who had been a huge force in all their lives.an end-of-life doula and a progressive funeral director. Anna supports people who are living with life-limiting illness, their family and friends, helping people to live as good a life as possible right up until the very end. In her doula role, Anna also works with people who are grieving. Louise supports people to put together funerals that honour, heal and inspire. Our joint mission is to normalise death and dying as part of life and living. Over the last year, our work, both together and separately, has changed immeasurably.

Many of us won’t have any idea that, worldwide, in an average year, around 151,600 people die every single day. That’s almost two people every second. Annually, in the UK alone, more than 500,000 people die. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has meant that death and dying have infiltrated and impacted our lives in ways we’ve never experienced before. As a society, we’ve been faced with the shock of horrifying death tolls on a daily basis. We’ve been unable to be at the hospital deathbed of someone we love, or if we were allowed, we’ve had to say goodbye through multiple layers of PPE. Some of us have attended restricted funerals, unable to engage with the rituals and traditions associated with loss

Where do we turn when someone dies? In normal times, we’d seek solace in the presence of others, we’d allow ourselves to be supported by the people around us. They would bear witness to our losses, keeping us close and secure in the knowledge they were near. Devastatingly, Covid-19 has changed all of this. We couldn’t reach out. We couldn’t physically be there. We couldn’t hold someone’s hand as they lay dying in hospital or give a friend or colleague a much-needed hug after a funeral service. Human touch and connection were replaced by a phone, an iPad or a laptop screen – a cold, hard, reflective surface with its ability to “connect” reliant on an intermittent internet connection. With the absence of human connection, of closeness, of the comforting arms of someone we love, how and where did we find consolation and care? How could we find ways to come together while staying apart?

We are privileged that our jobs have allowed us to witness a myriad of inspiring and beautiful ways people have found to do just that. The humanity of NHS staff has astounded us time and again. One nurse stayed with a young woman who was dying alone in hospital long after his shift was over, reading aloud the text messages she was receiving from family and friends. We saw a frightened young woman transferred from the hospital where she was receiving cancer treatment to hospice so she could be surrounded by those who loved her at the end. Her family played her favourite music and soothed her with stories from her childhood in a peaceful room overlooking the hospice gardens. And a newly married man, with his entire life ahead of him, died unexpectedly in a tragic accident. Hospital staff, despite restrictive regulations, rushed to find extra PPE so his new wife could be there to kiss him for the final time.

We watched a fractured community come together to share flowers from their gardens when florists were closed and funeral flowers were unavailable. A simple request via the neighbourhood WhatsApp group resulted in a widow’s doorstep overflowing with blooms for her partner’s coffin. We witnessed how the rules of social distancing have necessitated some radical creative thinking and we worked with a celebrant who designed a long multi-coloured ribbon that everyone at the funeral could touch and hold to feel connected, while still remaining physically distant.

We were asked to help facilitate a worldwide Zoom by a group of friends when one of them died by suicide. They wore his favourite colours, shared photos of the fun they’d had together and raised a glass of champagne in his honour. Separated by a virus, united in grief, connected via technology.

Who would have thought just 18 months ago that today we’d be watching the people we love dying over FaceTime and attending their funerals via video link? Yet the unimaginable has become our everyday reality. And it’s within the reality of the unimaginable that we’ve seen the infinite beauty and endless possibility of the human spirit shine. We’ve learned we can bear the unimaginable. We are bearing the unimaginable. Through kindness, creativity and determination, we’ve found hope in our heartbreak, discovered that our vulnerabilities are also our strengths, and realised that our resilience is born from finding fragments of optimism and wonder in the most unlikely of places

Now, the promise of spring sits in the cool end-of-winter air. Gone are the dark afternoons; the frost and biting wind are slowly disappearing, allowing these March days to tenderly unfurl, reaching expectantly into the longer evening light. They bring with them a degree of anticipation, hope and new life. There is life. There is hope. There’s always hope.

‘We All Know How This Ends: Lessons about Life and Living from Working with Death and Dying’ by Anna Lyons and Louise Winter is available now.

Complete Article HERE!

As death approaches, our dreams offer comfort, reconciliation

As death approaches, relationships can be resurrected, love revived and forgiveness achieved.

By

One of the most devastating elements of the coronavirus pandemic has been the inability to personally care for loved ones who have fallen ill.

Again and again, grieving relatives have testified to how much more devastating their loved one’s death was because they were unable to hold their family member’s hand – to provide a familiar and comforting presence in their final days and hours.

Some had to say their final goodbyes through smartphone screens held by a medical provider. Others resorted to using walkie-talkies or waving through windows.

How does one come to terms with the overwhelming grief and guilt over the thought of a loved one dying alone?

I don’t have an answer to this question. But the work of a hospice doctor named Christopher Kerr – with whom I co-authored the book “Death Is But a Dream: Finding Hope and Meaning at Life’s End” – might offer some consolation.

Unexpected visitors

At the start of his career, Dr. Kerr was tasked – like any and all physicians – with attending to the physical care of his patients. But he soon noticed a phenomenon that seasoned nurses were already accustomed to. As patients approached death, many had dreams and visions of deceased loved ones who came back to comfort them in their final days.

Doctors are typically trained to interpret these occurrences as drug-induced or delusional hallucinations that might warrant more medication or downright sedation.

But after seeing the peace and comfort these end-of-life experiences seemed to bring his patients, Dr. Kerr decided to pause and listen. One day, in 2005, a dying patient named Mary had one such vision: She began moving her arms as if rocking a baby, cooing at her child who had died in infancy decades prior.

To Dr. Kerr, this didn’t seem like cognitive decline. What if, he wondered, patients’ own perceptions at life’s end mattered to their well-being in ways that should not concern just nurses, chaplains and social workers?

What would medical care look like if all physicians stopped and listened, too?

The project begins

So at the sight of dying patients reaching and calling out to their loved ones – many of whom they had not seen, touched or heard for decades – he began collecting and recording testimonies given directly by those who were dying. Over the course of 10 years, he and his research team recorded the end-of-life experiences of 1,400 patients and families.

What he discovered astounded him. Over 80% of his patients – no matter what walk of life, background or age group they came from – had end-of-life experiences that seemed to entail more than just strange dreams. These were vivid, meaningful and transformative. And they always increased in frequency near death.

They included visions of long-lost mothers, fathers and relatives, as well as dead pets come back to comfort their former owners. They were about relationships resurrected, love revived and forgiveness achieved. They often brought reassurance and support, peace and acceptance.

Becoming a dream weaver

I first heard of Dr. Kerr’s research in a barn.

I was busy mucking my horse’s stall. The stables were on Dr. Kerr’s property, so we often discussed his work on the dreams and visions of his dying patients. He told me about his TEDx Talk on the topic, as well as the book project he was working on.

I couldn’t help but be moved by the work of this doctor and scientist. When he disclosed that he was not getting far with the writing, I offered to help. He hesitated at first. I was an English professor who was an expert in taking apart the stories others wrote, not in writing them myself. His agent was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to write in ways that were accessible to the public – something academics are not exactly known for. I persisted, and the rest is history.

It was this collaboration that turned me into a writer.

I was tasked with instilling more humanity into the remarkable medical intervention this scientific research represented, to put a human face on the statistical data that had already been published in medical journals.

The moving stories of Dr. Kerr’s encounters with his patients and their families confirmed how, in the words of the French Renaissance writer Michel de Montaigne, “he who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.”

I learned about Robert, who was losing Barbara, his wife of 60 years, and was assailed by conflicting feelings of guilt, despair and faith. One day, he inexplicably saw her reaching for the baby son they had lost decades ago, in a brief span of lucid dreaming that echoed Mary’s experience years earlier. Robert was struck by his wife’s calm demeanor and blissful smile. It was a moment of pure wholeness, one that transformed their experience of the dying process. Barbara was living her passing as a time of love regained, and seeing her comforted brought Robert some peace in the midst of his irredeemable loss.

For the elderly couples Dr. Kerr cared for, being separated by death after decades of togetherness was simply unfathomable. Joan’s recurring dreams and visions helped mend the deep wound left by her husband’s passing months earlier. She would call out to him at night and point to his presence during the day, including in moments of full and articulate lucidity. For her daughter Lisa, these occurrences grounded her in the knowledge that her parents’ bond was unbreakable. Her mother’s pre-death dreams and visions assisted Lisa in her own journey toward acceptance – a key element of processing loss.

When children are dying, it is often their beloved, deceased pets that make appearances. Thirteen-year-old Jessica, dying of a malignant form of bone-based cancer, started having visions of her former dog, Shadow. His presence reassured her. “I will be fine,” she told Dr. Kerr on one of his last visits.

For many kids, their only experience with death is with family pets, and the return of deceased animals can be comforting.

For Jessica’s mom, Kristen, these visions – and Jessica’s resulting tranquility – helped initiate the process she had been resisting: that of letting go.

Isolated but not alone

The health care system is difficult to change. Nevertheless, Dr. Kerr still hopes to help patients and their loved ones reclaim the dying process from a clinical approach to one that is appreciated as a rich and unique human experience.

Pre-death dreams and visions help fill the void that may otherwise be created by the doubt and fear that death evokes. They help the dying reunite with those they have loved and lost, those who secured them, affirmed them and brought them peace. They heal old wounds, restore dignity, and reclaim love. Knowing about this paradoxical reality helps the bereaved cope with grief as well.

As hospitals and nursing homes continue to remain closed to visitors because of the coronavirus pandemic, it may help to know that the dying rarely speak of being alone. They speak of being loved and put back together.

There is no substitute for being able to hold our loved ones in their last moments, but there may be solace in knowing that they were being held.

Complete Article HERE!

Dying a conscious death

Your dead body might be bad for the environment

By

As a young and seemingly invincible college student, one presumably does not put much thought into their inevitable death. However, if you are eco-conscious, perhaps it is time to start planning ahead.

The need to preserve one’s lifeless beauty for just a little bit longer has grave consequences for the earth. When a person dies, it is common for their body to be pumped with an embalming fluid that contains a mixture of toxic chemicals in order to postpone their inevitable decomposition. They are then placed in a casket that is likely made up of inorganic hardwood, copper, bronze, and steel. Their toxic body encased in a casket of unsustainable materials will eventually be lowered into the ground in a concrete crypt.

Green burials are a sustainable alternative to this contemporary western burial method. They may also be called “natural burials,” and the process does not involve any inhibition of decomposition. Instead, the body in its natural state is placed into the soil so that it can be recycled into the earth and help to nourish the land, as most decomposing life does. The body is wrapped in a biodegradable shroud or casket and then buried shallow enough to decay in a way that is similar to composting.

Craig Benson, an environmental science and management lecturer, said that the funeral and cemetery industry already appears to be responding to increasing requests for green burials.

“I would like to see more conservation burial options like the Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery near Gainesville, Florida,” Benson said. “This is where old restoration ecologists, like me, could make a last ditch effort– pun intended– at creating a contiguous savanna habitat and providing lots of underground munchies for the microfauna and microflora. Why have a feast at your funeral when you can be one!”

In the United States, cremation has recently become the most popular choice for those who pass away. While the ashes of our loved ones harbor sentimental value, this way of honoring the dead is unfortunately still harmful to the environment. Cremation leads to release of harmful toxins into the atmosphere, including carbon monoxide, fine soot, sulfur dioxide, heavy metals, and mercury emissions.

When asked about the environmental impact of cremation, Jennifer Kalt, the director of Humboldt Baykeeper, gave insight on the atmospheric consequences of the practice.

“I noticed that the Los Angeles Air Quality Board recently lifted the limits on cremations temporarily due to the number of COVID-19 deaths,” Kalt said. “I’ve read that cremation is a significant source of mercury pollution. Once it’s released into the atmosphere, it gets re-deposited by rain and fog. All that does make me wonder why people think cremation is a better option. My understanding of the green burial concept is that it prohibits embalming, but human bodies still have contaminants that we store up over lifetimes.”

There are a few local options for those who choose to give their body back to the earth. Cemeteries in Loleta, Fortuna, and Blue Lake all offer natural burial options. However, Blue Lake Cemetery is the only place that does not require the body to be contained in a concrete crypt.

Environmental conflict resolution lecturer Natalie Arroyo said that, in her personal opinion, green burials seem like a great end-of-life option for those who would like to practice sustainability even after they die. However, it is important to note that how humans deal with death is wholly intertwined with their cultural, religious, and personal values.

“I would say as a community member and lecturer who has read and heard a little bit about this, that green burials seem like an excellent alternative with environmental benefits,” Arroyo said. “But they may not fit with people’s religious and cultural values, and they may not suit every circumstance. For example, my own father died far away from home, and his body was cremated due to the low cost and need to transport the remains easily over a long distance.”

Complete Article HERE!

The struggle for the right to choose when and how to die

Katie Engelhart’s book spells out the moral and practical conundrums

The Inevitable. By Katie Engelhart. St Martin’s Press; 352 pages; $27.99. Atlantic Books

IF IT IS humane to put down a dog in unbearable and incurable pain, why not extend the same right to humans if they want it? That question echoes through “The Inevitable” as it follows four people in search of a good death—and in fear of a bad one.

Katie Engelhart’s deeply researched and beautifully reported book raises familiar quandaries. Do people have a right to die on their own terms? Should doctors help? Do motivations matter? And might a right become a duty for everyone who grows old, dependent or demented? It also considers less publicised problems, such as: how do people actually die? Advances in medicine and technology that have made pills and appliances safer have made it harder to achieve an “easy” or “peaceful” death for those who seek one.

As policymakers and ethicists ponder these moral conundrums, around the world people are taking matters into their own hands, a trend that gives Ms Engelhart’s book its urgency. Faced with intolerable suffering, her subjects have largely given up on laws and doctors and instead turn to strangers on the internet for help. For instance, Avril Henry, a British octogenarian, spent her nights “marinating in her pain” and considered eating lethal fungi from her garden to end it. But “death by mushroom could be slow, messy, painful. The Nembutal would work better.” The “Peaceful Pill Handbook”suggested buying that drug from either a vet-supply store in Mexico or the Chinese black market. Doubtful about Chinese merchandise, Henry settled on Mexico.

Over several years, Ms Engelhart’s main characters meticulously plan their escapes from old age, dementia and chronic or mental illness. She also follows two doctors, one of whom lost his licence for teaching people how to “exit” via “DIY death seminars”. At times the book itself has a DIY air, taking in the practicalities of connecting a gas canister to a plastic bag that can be placed over a head.

The similarity between the “euthanasia underground” that it describes and underground abortion networks is striking. The president of Compassion & Choices, a lobby group for doctor-assisted dying, once referred to plastic-bag hoods as “the end-of-life equivalent of the coat hanger”. Among those to have taken charge of their deaths were some early AIDS patients, their suffering immense, their fates fixed. Just having the right drugs, or knowing they could get them, seemed to make many of these young men feel better, recalls the more likeable of the two doctors.

Henry planned to kill herself with the Mexican drugs in her bathtub, but fretted that she would soil herself and that her house would smell. Dignity—in life and death—seems to preoccupy her and others above all. Even more than a bad death they fear a bad end to life, in which they are no longer themselves. A desire for autonomy runs through their stories like the thin veins of some of the characters.

Yet this is not a right-to-die manifesto. The author’s own ethical doubts are among the book’s strengths. She writes compassionately of her subjects’ struggles, but is more reserved about the motives of some of their helpers. She remains torn about what is perhaps the hardest question of all: euthanasia for victims of dementia. Rather than passing judgment, she presents facts. About half of Americans think patients do not have enough control over end-of-life decisions. Existing laws often have arbitrary effects.

After the drugs arrived from Mexico, Henry’s house was raided by police. She had discovered the concept of the “Completed Life”. “That’s when you feel that your life is shaped and finished. And the direction thereafter is down. I did have a complete life. It was a great life,” she told a friend. Soon after the raid she was found in her bathtub, having drunk the poison the police had missed. The note she left had a postscript: “If I have fouled the bath in death, please please be kind to wash it down.” She provided the disinfectant.

Complete Article HERE!

‘Jump, Darling’

The late Cloris Leachman delivers a touching swansong in this small-scale Canadian drama

Jump, Darling, with Cloris Leachman and Thomas Duplesses

By Allan Hunter

The late Cloris Leachman remains an inveterate scene stealer in Jump, Darling, a small-scale drama that provides her with a touching swansong. Phil Connell’s compact tale of a young drag queen’s emotional travails finds its heart in the chemistry between Leachman and co-star Thomas Duplessie. LGBTQ festivals should provide some traction for a modest tale that will feel at home on domestic screens.

Every time she appears, Leachman adds an extra zing to the proceedings

Writer/director Connell wastes little time in scene-setting, instead propelling us into the world of aspiring actor Russell (Duplessie) who has found a second wind and a potential new career as Toronto drag queen Fishy Falters.

His commitment to drag provokes a parting of the ways with wealthy, status conscious boyfriend Justin (Andrew Bushell). After a disastrous appearance at Peckers night club, Russell decides to leave town and take temporary sanctuary with his elderly grandmother Margaret (Leachman) in Prince Edward County.

Margaret is all too aware of her frailties and forgetfulness but remains determined to avoid becoming a resident at the local Millbrook Care Home. Russell’s arrival could be the solution to her problem.

Jump, Darling travels along predictable roads as family secrets are revealed, ghosts of the past confronted and separate generations discover the strength to be true to themselves. What makes the journey worthwhile are the performances. Leachman completed two further films before her death earlier this year aged 94. This is her last starring role. She is physically frail but delivers a sardonic one-liner with impeccable comic timing and brings out the poignancy in a spirited, frightened woman whose final wish is to have a good death in her own home. Every time she appears, Leachman adds an extra zing to the proceedings and it feels as if the film belongs to Margaret.

Russell may be trying to figure out his future but there feels less at stake for his character as he dallies with elusive bartender Zacahry (Kwaku Adu-Poku) and brings his drag persona to brighten up local bar Hannah’s Hovel.

Duplessie makes a convincing drag artiste. There is some of the relish of Tim Curry’s Frank n Furter in his Fishy Falters and Connell captures his committed lip-synching performances with dynamic camerawork and sharp editing. The film also features appearances from real life Toronto drag acts Tynomi Banks, Fay Slift and Miss Fiercalicious.

Cinematographer Viktor Cahoj conveys the charms of this wine country corner of rural Canada that are compiled into attractive montages. It is a promising first feature but the characters surrounding Russell are thinly drawn, especially Justin and Zachary. Russell’s exasperated mother Ene (Linda Kash) seems to exist merely to chide and then reconcile.

Connell’s need to keep the narrative forever moving forward comes at a cost. Jump, Darling has a trim running time but a little more complexity or contemplation would have been welcome. The lack of depth in the supporting characters is more apparent when the focus returns to the emotional plight of Margaret in her final days which feels very real and very moving.

Complete Article HERE!

I want my dying patients to have good deaths. I grieve for all those who died alone this year.

By Roshni Kakaiya

February marked one year since I last saw somebody die in our hospital surrounded by their loved ones. To give you some context, I am a physician in training in the South Bay — a community that was hit particularly hard by the novel coronavirus that can lead to COVID-19. As a family medicine resident, I take care of patients in our clinic, admit them to the hospital, care for them in the ICU, and even deliver their babies. As such, I am no stranger to the never-ending cycle of birth, illness and death, especially during the pandemic.

Yet I can tell you that a few moments of clarity shine bright against the haze of this past year. This memory of my patient’s death stands out so strikingly to me because of the comparison with what came down just a few days later, when our lockdown began and our hospital policies changed.

One year later, I can close my eyes and still picture this patient and her family. The patient was in her 80s and the matriarch of her family. The day before she died, she had woken up with some energy and was able to speak with her daughters who were at bedside most of the day. We see this sometimes in the days before people pass — they get a burst of vivaciousness that sometimes fools us into thinking they are doing better.

The day my patient died, her daughters were holding hands and all touching some part of their mother, grieving together and comforting each other. Their husbands and children were somberly in attendance, intermittently wiping away tears. There must have been at least nine people in that room, something I can barely imagine now with our limited visitor policy. The daughters sang the patient’s favorite hymn, and they were even able to play part of a sermon their mother loved. Every time I walked into the room to check on this patient, I immediately felt the warmth, the love and the comfort the family was bringing to each other. This was a good death. This was a death filled with love, and touch, and warmth, and solidarity, and connection, and presentness. This was a death the family could remember and discuss as needed as its members mourned, which, as we have come to know, is crucial to processing such a significant event. This was a natural death of a woman in her 80s who had lived a long and wonderful life.

As a physician in training, it initially felt counterintuitive how much time we spend thinking and talking about death with our patients in both the hospital and clinic setting. However, I’ve come to realize that some of my most important work comes in the form of advocating for my patients to have a good death. A death they would have wanted, maybe even that they could have chosen for themselves — a peaceful death or a death with a fighting spirit up until the very end.

As I see our patients dying mostly alone in our hospital, with only family being able to visit, one or two at a time in the hours before a person is about to die, or looking at their loved ones through the window as they are intubated and sedated, I grieve for our community. I grieve for those who have had so many good deaths taken away from them — and had them instead replaced with a screen from which to watch their loved ones slowly dwindle away. I grieve the good death, the death that comes with a natural closure. Yet I am hopeful that one day we will return to this good death — the death that is filled with touching, hugging, crying, laughing, and snot flying everywhere. One day, togetherness will not be the vector for more deaths and more grieving. It will be the balm that heals us from the most difficult year of our lives. This is the death I wish unto you and your families in the future: the good death, a death worth dying for.

Complete Article HERE!