It is sadly too routine that veterinary professionals diagnose a condition that quickly forces a pet family to become caretakers. The stress can be insurmountable on the human family, the pet, other animals living in the home, and the often forgotten veterinary professional.
Our pets are increasingly considered family members, and there may be the heartbreak and devotion to required caretaking. Twenty years ago, who would have thought pet hospice could be a viable option?
The list of life-altering changes for a pet may be long for the human family—everything from learning how to administer fluids to having to carry a large dog up and down stairs. How does an elderly pet owner do either of these things? Scheduling visits to see the general practitioner or a specialist might strain a busy family. The pet’s condition could even mean a child missing band practice or canceling family or business travel plans. Changing life plans can be financially costly, and so can treatment.
All of this and more may put a strain on you, the veterinary professional. Although some incredible human beings are natural caretakers and are able to deal with all this in stride, most clients are not quite so malleable. It is also no fun communicating a difficult prognosis and describing a long series of pharmaceuticals that can be alphabet soup in clients’ heads.
A normally amiable client might transform into a quite testy one. It is human nature to push back; however, this is where your patience, empathy, and professionalism should be applied. And remember, whatever is said is rarely personal.
Attempting to remember which medications to administer and when to give those drugs is tough enough. Also, consider some clients may simultaneously be dealing with health challenges requiring medications of their own or dealing with the illness of another family member.
Now add day-to-day difficulties, like administering pills to that dog or cat. When the well-meaning pet owner goes to a counter where the medications are and the fragile cat manages to make a break for it, it’s heartbreaking (and sometimes physically challenging) to push the pills. Sometimes, medications aren’t given because the pet owners feel guilty or that they aren’t capable of getting that pill into the animal.
Not only are human family members stressed, but so are the pets. The once beloved human family members are doing things that may cause temporary discomfort for the pet. Any chronic pain issues are likely being addressed, but findings from many studies demonstrate that pain can cause changes in mood, potentially even aggression, and also might cause behavior changes likes accidents outside a litter box. All this can profoundly impact both sides of the human-animal bond.
An animal not feeling well can feel anxious. After all, no one can explain to that animal what the medical condition is. What’s more, we know that pets, so closely bonded, will pick up on the stress of human family members. Anxiety is contagious.
Other household pets sense that stress as well. And they may exhibit behavior changes because of what’s going on. For example, if one dog has an accident indoors, a second dog might too. Life changes quickly from having fun with multiple pets to feeling frantic.
All this sure isn’t easy—and in many ways not so different from caretaking for a sick human family member, except the good and bad news is having the option of euthanasia when the time is right.
But how do pet owners know when the time is right? How many times have you been asked, “If this was your pet…?” And many clients do seek the professionals’ unbiased opinion, which can be exceedingly valuable, particularly with longtime clients. However, that question isn’t an easy one to answer, even if the answer is obvious.
To a great degree, all situations are different. Some clients simply cannot continue to cope with caretaking or perhaps the expense. Or, frankly, there are just too many accidents in the house or perhaps the dog has uncharacteristically bitten a family member. When the human-animal bond is fractured in a terminally ill animal, isn’t euthanasia a reasonable expectation?
Other clients can’t let go, as their bond is so intense and maybe even made more so through the process of caretaking—they simply can’t bear the notion of euthanasia. And your truthful suggestion is met with defensive resistance, even though the client said, “I want an honest answer.” However, the client really only wants an answer to support a predetermined opinion. Your guidance through this entire process begins with being available and expressing empathy.
Human physicians never deal with all the emotions and issues regarding euthanasia. I am doubtful all human physicians could easily step into the shoes of a veterinary professional. And, as I’ve said, as well as others, “Pet owners do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
When Nicholas ‘Nicko’ Smithson was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, he would lie awake at night terrified of dying.
The tradesman spent years labouring in the sun and was diagnosed with melanoma when he was 38 years old.
He was given just six months to live.
“I was quite petrified of whether there was life after death,” Mr Smithson said.
“They didn’t catch it (the cancer) in time … it spread throughout my entire body, my bones, my liver, everything like that.”
Mr Smithson, who lives in Rockhampton in central Queensland, underwent intense immunotherapy and two years later is in remission.
Nicholas Smithson at a hospital in Brisbane.
He has teamed up with his best friend, Bryan Perry, who owns a crematorium business to help demystify and start the conversation about death through their Deadass Podcast.
In denial about death
Leading palliative care researcher Adjunct Professor Elizabeth Lobb said Australians live in a “death-denying society”.
Elizabeth Lobb says it is important for people to talk about their feelings after a diagnosis.
She has spent 28 years of her life dedicated to the psychological impact of oncology, palliative care and grief.
She said people avoid the topic because it is confronting and people fear the unknown.
“It’s not something that we talk about, [but] certainly when someone receives a diagnosis of cancer, it’s one of the first things that comes into their mind,” Dr Lobb said.
She said when you did not know how to respond or help those with life-limiting diagnoses, the first step was to give people a chance to talk about their feelings.
“I often say to family members that sometimes words aren’t needed, it’s just important to listen, we can’t solve this,” Dr Lobb said.
“People who are facing a life-limiting illness can become very isolated and it can be lonely because no one wants to talk about it.”
Sharing eulogies
Mr Smithson, now 40, works for the podcast creating digital content and has been featured in episodes to share his life story, or “eulogy”.
He has been warned by health professionals that his cancer could return, and he has decided he will not seek further treatment because of the harsh impact on his body.
Mr Smithson has shared his story with the podcast.
Mr Smithson said the double doses of immunotherapy led to ulcerative colitis, and his colon had to be removed.
He said working on the podcast has helped him come to terms with death.
“It’s kind of shed a bit of light and helped ease the anxiety a little bit of, if it does end up happening, I’d be OK with that,” he said.
Mr Perry, who hosts the show, said he wanted a platform to share his mate’s story, as well as other people’s eulogies before it was too late.
“We were contemplating his own mortality and discussing some of the things we’ve done together over the years and taking the opportunity to record those memories,” Mr Perry said.
“The intentions were to either keep those or to share them and even potentially have his own funeral.”
Mr Perry spends so much time with death, he even named his dog Rigor Mortis.
Preparing for death
Mr Perry, who has worked in the funeral industry for more than 20 years, said people were hesitant to think about death.
He urged more people to think about it practically.
“Jot down what you want, put down what sort of songs you want, where you want to have it,” he said.
“It’s just peace of mind for the people that you’re leaving behind so that when your time does come, the family knows exactly what you want and it just lessens the burden for them.”
Mr Perry says he wants to capture more people’s eulogies while they’re still living.
Dr Lobb said not everyone was able to communicate their final wishes but she recommended those who could to consider their financial affairs and where they want palliative care to take place, whether it be at home or in a hospital.
“There’s no right or wrong and it’s very individual,” she said.
“Yes, it is devastating, it’s overwhelming, but not necessarily as fearful as [it’s] perhaps being portrayed.”
— End-of-life cancer patients in a therapy group in Canada used psilocybin to reduce their fears. It helped some find peace.
Valorie Masuda, left, Gail Peekeekoot, center, and Barb Fehlau participate in a grounding ceremony for staff members at Roots to Thrive, a wellness center in Nanaimo, British Columbia, in August.
By Meryl Davids Landau
When Brian Meyer received a Stage 4 prostate cancer diagnosis three years ago at age 62, he was determined to make the most of his remaining years. He immediately retired from a decades-long career in the grocery business and took every opportunity to hike, camp and — his all-time favorite — fish for salmon. Brian and his wife, Cheryl, regularly visited their two grown children and three grandsons and spent time with their many friends.
But it was sometimes hard to keep his mind off his pain and the reality that life was nearing an end. “It tugs at the heart all the time,” Meyer, from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, said in August. A calm person by nature, he found his anxiety skyrocketing.
By November, though, despite a new, highly aggressive liver cancer that shrank his prognosis to months or weeks, Meyer felt calm much of the time. The prime reason: a 25-milligram dose of the psychedelic drug psilocybin he had taken several months earlier, due to a Canadian program being watched elsewhere for the emotional benefits it may offer people nearing death.
In mid-August, Meyer and nine other people with terminal cancers had gathered in two rooms, and there, lying on plush floor mats with blankets covering their bodies, their eyes covered by sleeping masks and music piped in over headphones, they swallowed the psilocybin capsules. The consciousness-altering drug, administered by the nonprofit Vancouver Island wellness center Roots to Thrive, set Meyer and the others on a six-hour journey of fantastical images and thoughts. The hope was that this “trip” would lead to lasting improvements in mood and lessen their angst around death. It was accompanied by weeks of Zoom group therapy sessions before and after, along with an in-person gathering the evening before for a medical clearance and the opportunity for participants and their spouses to meet in person.
Canadian health-care providers have been able to offer this otherwise illegal drug since 2022 when the country’s national health-care system began a special access program for certain patients with serious or life-threatening diseases. To date, 168 Canadians have been authorized to receive the drug under the program. Similar access is not available in the United States, because a terminal patient’s right to try experimental therapies excludes psychedelics, which are banned by the Controlled Substances Act. Oregon and Colorado are in the early stages of allowing psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy due to ballot initiatives passed in the states, but people who receive the drug there could be charged with a crime under the federal law.
Clinical trials assessing psychedelics for various mental health concerns tend to administer them to patients individually. But Roots to Thrive prefers to do it in groups. “The group process in psychedelic-assisted therapy allows for a shared experience that helps people realize they are not alone in experiencing difficult emotions, symptoms or challenging life circumstances,” said Pam Kryskow, the center’s medical director.
By the time Meyer swallowed the psilocybin capsule, he felt comfortable with his cohort. Some, like Christine “Cat” Parlee, 53, who has Stage 4 melanoma that has spread to her lungs and throat, had become friends. At a restaurant where Parlee, her husband, Cory, and Cheryl gathered before the in-person meeting, Brian and Cat shared their hope that the drug experience would be joyful and that it would subsequently enhance their peace of mind.
The day after taking the psychedelic, however, sprawled on a couch in the resort room Brian and Cheryl had rented for the week, Meyer couldn’t conceal his disappointment. Although he didn’t have a negative trip, two of the other participants were overwhelmed by the drug’s intense effects and spent the hours yelling for it to stop. This repeatedly pulled Meyer away from the intriguing images filling his mind, including sword-fighting in a medieval castle yard and cooking elaborate meals of lobster and lamb in a massive industrial kitchen.
His mental journey was also interrupted by having to urinate regularly, a symptom of his prostate cancer, although he was struck by the intense spiritual connection he felt with one of the facilitators, registered nurse Gail Peekeekoot, as she touched his hands to guide him to the restroom. “It was like she was me, I was her. We were one together,” he marveled.
Psychedelic journeys don’t always proceed as people anticipate, leaving some feeling dissatisfied immediately after, said Barb Fehlau, a palliative care practitioner on Vancouver Island and the medical facilitator in the room, who herself has pancreatic cancer. Regardless of the experience while the drug is active, though, psychological healing often follows, she said.
That was the case for Meyer. In addition to his enhanced calmness, he remarked in November that taking the drug seemed to have deepened the connection he felt toward the friends and family who had streamed into his and Cheryl’s home following his worsened prognosis. “I have a way more sensitive outlook. I feel more love toward people,” Brian relayed at the time. Three weeks later, in a hospital surrounded by more than a dozen family members, Brian died. “He remained calm, peaceful and joyful” to the end, Cheryl said.
Should psychedelics ever be legalized as medicine — the first, methylenedioxy-methamphetamine, or MDMA, to treat post-traumatic stress disorder was submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December by the MAPS Public Benefit Corporation (now called Lykos Therapeutics) — people who might benefit most are those who have a terminal diagnosis, said Anthony Bossis, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at New York University.
Psychedelics do not alter the course of the person’s disease, but they can help make the remaining time more meaningful, Bossis said. He is co-author of a 2016 study of 29 cancer patients that found that a single dose of psilocybin significantly reduced depression and anxiety and “led to decreases in cancer-related demoralization and hopelessness, improved spiritual wellbeing, and increased quality of life,” the study reported.
Feeling a sense of connection to something larger than themselves, akin to what Meyer experienced with Peekeekoot, may be especially important, the study found. “After this experience, people often say, ‘I realized I’m not just my cancer. I’m not just this body. I’m something more enduring.’ This is a real gift,” Bossis said.
How psychedelics might change a person’s outlook is under investigation. One study with mice this past summer by Johns Hopkins University researchers found that the drugs reopen “critical learning periods” in the brain for months after their use. Mice studies don’t translate exactly to humans, but this finding suggests that psychedelics may cause people to be especially receptive to new ideas and ways of being.
Still, the research on psilocybin for those at the end of their lives is in the early stage, and whether the drug might prove harmful for some isn’t yet known. Roots to Thrive’s unpublished research surveying 20 people from its prior three psilocybin group sessions found many felt more positive, peaceful, lighter and less stressed. But four felt little to no change.
Cat Parlee, who participated with Meyer in the August session, had taken psilocybin two prior times at Roots to Thrive in the previous 18 months. While some people experience lasting transformation after taking the drug once, Parlee found that after six months her fears and anxiety would return.
Reclining on a comfortable hammock chair on their home’s back patio the day after Parlee’s August session, her husband, Cory, says the two have come to view the psyche as if it were a cookie with pieces bitten off around the edges. “The psychedelics help Cat find the missing pieces that make her more whole,” Cory reflected. “Psychedelics help you answer questions you may not know or give yourself permission to ask.”
Cat Parlee agreed. “Every time I’ve walked out of psychedelic medicine session, I feel like I’ve left weight behind — weight I’ve consciously decided I’m not going to carry anymore,” she said. This included the negative emotions she had felt toward her deceased mother and the people who badgered her to try the cancer “cures” they read about online. “A lot of energy was wasted on a lot of anger, a lot of sadness and a lot of guilt. I realized I don’t have time to waste on that anymore,” she said.
While many people might benefit from addressing psychological issues that impede their lives, the urge to confront such demons often intensifies when a person is given a few months or years to live, according to Shannon Dames, the founder of Roots to Thrive. Most of us operate under the illusion that we have time to change these things, Dames said. “When you’re at a place when you don’t have that perception of time, there’s a calling that’s really potent.”
About a month before his death, Meyer credited the psychedelic with reducing the discomfort he felt about dying. “I don’t want to say I’m excited, but I am very curious now,” he said. He realized the mushrooms had taken him to an unknown, altered world; death would do the same.
In Parlee’s case, her fear “was that there is nothing — just emptiness — after you’re dead.” During her second psilocybin trip, she watched herself swim in brightly lit, vivid waters amid an intense feeling of love. She was soothed by the sense that experience may be similar to the afterlife.
Since her August session, Parlee has also increasingly found pleasure in standing up for her needs, rather than always worrying about other people as she had previously done. “There’s one thing I want to do before I leave this world: It’s to know that I spent my last few years happy. One thing I can say right now is I don’t have any real regrets,” she said.
Then she took a deep breath and smiled. “I don’t know if I would have ever gotten to that place without this psilocybin journey.”
Although death is an inevitable part of life, most people don’t like talking or thinking about it. But for some, the dread and fear surrounding death is so intense that it interferes with their ability to live a healthy life. Here are ways to cope with your fear of death, and move beyond death anxiety to death acceptance.
What is Death Anxiety
Death anxiety, or thanatophobia, is characterized by a fear of one’s own death or a fear of the dying process. Death anxiety can manifest in a variety of ways. While older adults may be confronted by overwhelming thoughts about their own mortality, people of all ages can experience death anxiety. Some may have an excessive fear of losing their loved ones. Some may obsess over the ways they might contract a terminal illness. Others may frequently visit their doctors and request medical tests or body scans, out of fear that they have a chronic disease. Still others may worry about leaving loved ones behind after they die.
Feeling uneasy about the end of life is completely natural. Fear of the unknown and what happens after death is a legitimate concern. But when negative thoughts about death and dying prevent you from living your normal life, it may be necessary to address your anxiety towards death.
How to Cope
The first step to cope with the fear of death is to recognize that fearing death is often a normal part of the human experience. When we accept that death is natural and inevitable, we can come to terms with it and find peace. The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s book No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life is a practical place to start for those looking to overcome their death anxiety. He uses guided meditations and personal stories to help readers live a life free of fear.
People experiencing death anxiety will often avoid talking about it, which in turn negatively affects their mental health. But talking about our fears with our loved ones can be a powerful and healing strategy to overcome the fear of death. If you’re not sure how to break the ice,The Conversation Project offers free toolkits for starting conversations about death and dying. Attending a Death Cafe is another great way to discuss death in an open and supportive environment.
Another helpful way to feel more comfortable with death is to practice rituals. Whether you are religious or not, rituals can help create a sense of meaning and comfort to prepare for your own death as well as the death of your loved ones. You may choose to contemplate the loved ones you have lost and light a candle for them, or practice a death meditation to ease your mind about the inevitability of death. Diving into your family’s religious traditions and exploring new spiritual ideas can also help you move away from death anxiety toward death acceptance.
Finally, focusing on living in the present moment and enjoying every day that you are alive can serve as a powerful tool to curb death anxiety. One of the best pieces of advice from others who have conquered their death anxiety is to focus on living authentically, passionately, and well.
American culture is extraordinarily goal-oriented. This January, pause and notice the messages and expectations that are motivating you. Everyone creates goals regarding all aspects of life. In a single day, we set a vast number of goals to accomplish.
Adults have daily, monthly, or yearly goals for their job which may not be in alignment with their additional career goals. Athletes have intense levels of goal achievement and mindset work. Others may have spiritual or emotional goals. You might also have social, educational or even comfort goals, for instance, you want to purchase your own car or house or you want to start a family or gain independence. This list of goals can go on ad infinitum, but you have gotten the point by now and I’m beginning to feel overwhelmed by just listing possible goals.
Thus, I began polling people about their goals. I recently had a conversation with an acquaintance who stated their goal for 2024 was to add days to their family vacation. And then I sat there waiting in silence until it became uncomfortable, and I realized that was all they were going to say. I found myself in awe. I did not know what to say or how to respond as my mind whirled out of control with the list of goals I had set just because it’s TODAY and tomorrow isn’t promised!
My mind thought of my weightlifting, cardio, yoga, nutrition and meditation goals, the stack of books I plan to read, the podcast episodes and blog articles I want to do, the networking organizations and business researching, and any new certifications I think will benefit myself or my staff. Every year I want to see an increase in business profits. This breaks down to clients, social media and marketing goals, community outreach, pro-bono work.
As a member of my religion’s clergy, I have personal spiritual preparation and educational goals. Then there are relationships, family, and travel goals. And, underlying it all, my goal is to just handle what I’ve got scheduled and NOT take on any other GOALS!!!
I realized making New Year’s Goals is passe when I attended a business networking group recently, the host asked, “For those of you that are still into it, raise your hand if you’ve set goals for 2024?” Only about a third of the people raised their hand.
As a 2023 volunteer service goal, I committed to hosting monthly, virtual, Death Cafe meetings. For more information go to DeathCafe, According to the Death Cafe rules for these meetings, the only requirement is not to have a plan or agenda and to simply to hold space for the conversation. These are often sacred and sincere moments where people are vulnerable and share their thoughts and experiences. That required a personal commitment to do so. I see goals as personal commitments for growth, if you are not growing and learning you are stagnating.
One of my yoga certifications is in Brain Longevity Therapy Training. One of the tenets to a healthy aging brain is to keep it active. Activities like learning new skills, reading, socializing, movement work like balance and exercise all affect the brain. The brain and body need to be challenged to keep them working at optimal levels. However, growth is often a process that occurs even during dying and all the way through death. I often look at death, not only as transition but as an initiation. Death is an unknown and it takes preparation to face it in peace. Physician-assisted suicide, or “medical aid in dying”, is legal in eleven jurisdictions, the Commonwealth of Virginia is not one of them. As a Death Doula, I have been bedside with several people as they were actively dying. Some are aware and some are not, while all these deaths were medically regarded as peaceful. I do not know that they would classify as a “good death” if it were my own.
Holding space for Death is a growth experience. My ultimate goal is to have a good death and all my other goals reflect that. No, I am not actively dying, I am actively living. I am acutely aware of the fact that tomorrow is not promised and that gives the simplest of moments a glamor that most people do not see.
For example, walking my very elderly dog is its own growth experience in mindfulness. We walk slowly and methodically. Her eyes are not as clear now and it is obvious she has become mostly deaf. She avoids stairs or steep hills. She demands pets from any stranger and wants to sniff any friendly dog. She takes long pauses to sniff thoroughly between bushes and under benches. I have time to notice the clarity of the stars above and watch the diamonds of frost begin to form as we stand silently on the abandoned sidewalks in the winter darkness. The sweeping mantle of cold (or possibly arthritic joints) makes her knees tremble slightly.
We slowly walk along, allowing her to go as far as she wants and where she wants, until she spontaneously turns around and heads back. Some days she stands in the doorway to our apartment looking through as if she has forgotten where she is, cautious about entering. Other days, as she sleeps long and deeply, I will hear her whimper and look over to see her feet moving slightly, clearly dreaming of running and playing with other dogs or her humans. I know time is growing shorter for her, but we will face that together. I do not ever want her to feel alone or unloved. We can never accurately predict when a natural death will occur, so you must be ready all the time. Ushering a pet is much like a person. We sit and just be with each other. Sometimes I talk but other times it is just not needed. She just wants someone to be present and touch her. So much is conveyed through touch.
Time seems to shrink for elders. One activity, like a medical appointment or meeting a friend for coffee, can be exhausting. You think you have all the time in the world to accomplish the things you want but knowing Death can come at any time can make the experiences of life taste even more sweet. I do not like to repeat experiences, travel to the same places or even eat in the same restaurants because I might miss an opportunity! When I die, I want to know I lived my life to its fullest and took every opportunity to suck the life out of every single minute. This requires commitment, planning and setting goals.
Take a minute to consider if you knew you only had one year left to live. How would you live differently? What would take importance? Do you have the cash? Make it happen. Set those goals! Say the things that need to be said! Do the things you need to do! Heal the things that need attention! Let go of the past and be present! It’s time to outgrow your comfortable life and move into the adventure of living fully so that when Death arrives you are ready to take that journey with her without hesitation or regret weighing you down.
P.S. I offer a virtual Death Cafe meeting every month, for more information google “Death Cafe of Southside Virginia” or look us up on DeathCafe.com
— In the midst of feeling so alive on a beautiful day, why do thoughts of death creep in?
“But sometimes we have an awakening experience, like realizing in a particular moment of contentment or completion that today wouldn’t be a bad day to die. It seems to be a message from the deepest part of the self that is always aware of the fact that we’re mortal.”
Movies at midday are one of the pleasures of aging; the theaters aren’t crowded, the tickets are cheaper, and later you can fill up on happy hour hors d’oeuvres and skip dinner.
I was headed for a matinee on a balmy, blue sky spring day a few weeks after a recent decade-changing birthday. Passing a flower market on the corner, I bent my head to the profusion of peonies clustered in tin buckets, breathing in their deep, rich scent. All at once I was literally set back on my heels by a thought that had never once occurred to me before, a thought so fully formed that it sounded like a voice in my head: This wouldn’t be a bad day to die.
“But sometimes we have an awakening experience, like realizing in a particular moment of contentment or completion that today wouldn’t be a bad day to die. It seems to be a message from the deepest part of the self that is always aware of the fact that we’re mortal.”
The censor that pushes the unthinkable back into the unconscious must have been asleep at the wheel. Why this, why now? I wondered. Why, in the midst of feeling so fully alive — so healthy, happy and untroubled — was I suddenly struck by the notion of my own death?
“If you don’t think about dying once a day or more – including doing the math when you read the obituaries – you’re in denial.”
I’ve lost friends and family members to death, but it’s only lately that I’ve thought much about my own. It’s not a preoccupation or obsession — not yet — but it’s increasingly taking up space in my head. The friends I was meeting at the theater agreed that, at our age, “If you don’t think about dying once a day or more — including doing the math when you read the obituaries — you’re in denial.”
Unexpected Thoughts About Death
That consciousness of our mortality happens in unexpected ways at ordinary moments. Death may not be imminent, at least not as far as we know, but it’s not unthinkable, either. Some of our closest friends and relatives have already died, and others may be in declining heath or facing a terminal illness.
Our own death is a subject we can talk or think about for only a brief time before we’re submerged in sadness, overcome with fear or frozen in disbelief. Yet daring to confront it frees us to fully engage in our own lives and those of the people we love until the last minute. That’s the existential telegram we don’t always see coming, the real message from the unconscious: Life itself is a terminal diagnosis.
Perhaps you or someone you love has received a more immediate one. The one unexpected gift of living with such news is dying with it; it’s an opportunity to examine your life and make meaning of it, finish your unfinished business, express your regrets, make your amends and renew your bonds with those you love.
Of course, you don’t have to be dying to do those things. In fact, the sooner you do them, the better: None of us knows when death will come or how we will experience it. We may plan for it, to the extent that we can, and in fact we must. We may hope for a long, slow gentle death with time to say goodbye before surrendering, or perhaps a lucky one, something so quick we never see it coming or suffer the grief of those we leave behind.
The good news is that facing up to death reconnects us to the richness of living as fully in the moment as we can for as long as we can.
The more we know about death, the less there is to fear it. We may approach it in small chunks, or from different perspectives, but we can’t put it at the safe distance it used to be. The good news is that facing up to death reconnects us to the richness of living as fully in the moment as we can for as long as we can.
The deaths of friends or acquaintances bring me closer to thinking about my own. Right now, I believe I want to have a “conscious” death, free from pain but not awareness. When the time comes, though, I may change my mind; I thought I wanted a natural, unmedicated childbirth, too! Because I live in a state that has legislated compassionate choice, I have the right, whether or not I have the opportunity, to decide when and how I die.
Until then, though, even the most thorough planning and foresight are not cure-alls for coping with the eventual reality of not being, the terror at the end of the self. “Anxiety is the price we pay for self-awareness; staring into death renders life more poignant, more precious, more vital,” as psychoanalyst Irving Yalom writes: “Such an approach to death leads to instruction about life.”
An Awakening Experience
We may be too involved in the prosaic quality of our everyday lives to let that terror out of the place we’ve corralled it — in our nightmares, in the depths of the unconscious, in the assurances of faith that another, better existence awaits us in the kingdom of heaven. Or we may have stored it in the mental compartment where we’ve contemplated our ultimate end, analyzed and even reasoned with it, and wrestled it to the ground on which we base our beliefs and values.
But sometimes we have an awakening experience, like realizing in a particular moment of contentment or completion — a garden planted, a goal accomplished, a conflict resolved, a problem solved, a question answered, or even a burden lifted — that today wouldn’t be a bad day to die. It seems to be a message from the deepest part of the self that is always aware of the fact that we’re mortal.
I wake up in the morning – and sometimes, lately, after an afternoon nap – pleased and surprised that I’m still here.
The message stimulates us to let go of ambitions and desires whose wanting drains the pleasure out of what we’ve already acquired or accomplished. Our imagination may still take us to places and experiences that thrill us to consider, but it may be wiser now to look at our bucket list one last time, cross off what’s not important any more, and stop fretting about what often still bugs us; getting to the bottom of it, carrying a grudge, caring what strangers think of us, going places we don’t want to go, being with people we really don’t like, doing things we no longer enjoy, and especially, saving things for later.
My own bucket list in this autumn of my life is divided into two columns: “Still Theoretically Possible” and “Very Long Shot.” What’s on the former are a winter in the Caribbean, finishing my memoirs, getting a tattoo, and finding a man who drives at night. On the latter are going around the world, falling in love or even lust again, winning the lottery, and having Oprah choose my still unwritten novel for her book club.
I do not long for death, or await it, as Mary Oliver writes, wondering if I have made something particular and real of my life. I am fortunate in having family and friends who reassure me that I have, and words, written and spoken, that have made a positive difference in the lives of others I will never meet.
I wake up in the morning – and sometimes, lately, after an afternoon nap – pleased and surprised that I’m still here. I believe in the conservation of energy, and that when I die, mine will be absorbed into a cosmic consciousness I’m certain exists outside of time.
If I’m wrong, of course, I’ll never know. And that’s a comfort too. And meanwhile, I’ll stop and smell the peonies.
The Digital Departed: How We Face Death, Commemorate Life, and Chase Virtual ImmortalityTimothy Recuber NYU Press (2023)
Many of us will have turned to the Internet to grieve and remember the dead — by posting messages on the Facebook walls of departed friends, for instance. Yet, we should give more thought to how the dead and dying themselves exert agency over their online presence, argues US sociologist Timothy Recuber in The Digital Departed.
In his expansive scholarly analysis, Recuber examines more than 2,000 digital texts, from blog posts by those who are terminally ill to online suicide notes and pre-prepared messages designed to be e-mailed to loved ones after someone has died. As he notes, “the digital data in this book are sad, to be sure, and they have often brought me to tears as I collected and analyzed them”. Yet, they are well worth delving into.
Recuber brings a fresh lens to studies of death culture by focusing on the feelings and intentions of the people who are dying, rather than those of the mourners. For example, he finds that a person’s sense of self can be altered through blogging about their illness. Writing freely helps people to come to terms with their deaths by making their suffering “legible and understandable”. Reflections on family and friends also reveal a sense of self-transformation. Indeed, many bloggers “attested to the positive value of the experience of a terminal illness, for the way it brought them closer to loved ones and especially for the wisdom it generated.”
This theme of self-transformation, which Recuber refers to as ‘digital reenchantment’, continues throughout the book. This terminology relates to the work of German sociologist Max Weber, who, at the turn of the twentieth century, argued that humans’ increasing ability to understand the world through science was robbing life of magic and mystery — a process he called disenchantment. When the dead seem to be resurrected through digital media, Recuber argues, they regain that mystery.
Recuber explores how X (formerly Twitter) hashtags can act as a form of collective online rememberance. He focuses on photos and stories shared in posts that use two hashtags, sparked by violent deaths of Black people in the United States: #IfIDieInPoliceCustody, in response to Sandra Bland’s death in prison in Waller County, Texas, in July 2015, and #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, which remembers Michael Brown, who was shot by police in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014. The “thousands of individual micro-narratives” posted in these threads, Recuber writes, amount to a “collectively composed story affirming the value of all Black lives and legacies”. They are memorials for the lives that have already been lost and for those that might be in future.
The author considers the perspectives of the individuals whose deaths inspired each hashtag. For example, 28-year-old Bland was imprisoned after being arrested for a driving offence. Friends and family questioned the police’s assertion that Bland had committed suicide, and #IfIDieInPoliceCustody was tweeted 16,500 times in its first week, as the result of the online attention that the case gained. What would Bland and Brown think of this coverage, Recuber asks? They might have been proud of this legacy, but they had no say in it. In a sense they are “doubly victimized”, he suggests, losing not only their lives but also “the agency to define themselves and the ways they’d like to be remembered”.
In the book’s most intriguing section, Recuber turns to transhumanism — the idea that, some time in the future, advanced technologies yet to be imagined could enable digital records of the human mind to be uploaded to the Internet. A person’s consciousness could then ‘live’ online forever.
Recuber interviews four men who lead companies that are helping people to preserve digital aspects of themselves or that are otherwise concerned with transhumanism. Bruce Duncan runs the Lifenaut project, part of the non-profit Terasem Movement Foundation, based in Bristol, Vermont, which allows users to create a digital archive of their reflections, photos and genetic code for future researchers to study. Eric Klien is the president and founder of the Lifeboat Foundation, a non-governmental organization based in Reno, Nevada, which is devoted to overcoming catastrophic and existential risks to humans, including from misuse of technologies. Robert McIntyre is the chief executive of Nectome, based in San Francisco, California, which works on techniques for embalming brains for future information retrieval. And Randal Koene is the chief scientific officer of the Carboncopies Foundation, based in San Francisco, a research organization that works on whole-brain emulation — a “neuroprosthetic system that is able to serve the same function as the brain”.
Artificial-intelligence firms are working to develop digital replicas of the dead.
According to Recuber, none could give a clear explanation for how mind uploading would work. That’s not surprising — neuroscientists are divided on whether it is even possible. But each interviewee had faith that it would become a possibility. Koene wonders whether uploaded minds might find a home in some kind of robotic body. Duncan and McIntyre imagine a disembodied human consciousness able to travel through space and visit other planets or stars.
Yet, Recuber was troubled to find that these men said very little about the social and ethical questions raised by mind uploading. Building a ‘superior’ type of human has a “whiff of eugenics” about it, he writes. The whole process would be expensive, perhaps creating a future division in social classes, with only the rich able to afford it. Duncan and Koene pointed out that this might not be true in the future — the prices of technologies, such as smartphones and data-storage units, tend to fall quite quickly.
Recuber does find people raising ethical concerns on the online discussion platform Reddit, where he examined more than 900 posts about transhumanism. One user was appalled that “the richest and most comfortable people in history spent their money and resources trying to live forever on the backs of their descendants”. But philosophical debates are much more popular, such as whether the uploaded disembodied mind would be equivalent to or superior to one’s own.
Transhumanism, Recuber notes, is working towards a very different type of online legacy from those discussed elsewhere in his book; it is focused not on strengthening ties with humanity but on cutting them. This idea of moving beyond mortal biological limits — gaining immortality through science and technology — is an old dream in a new guise. For religious people, the immortal substance is the soul; for transhumanists, it is the mind.
It is in these critiques of transhumanism that Recuber is at his sociological best. His astute comments exemplify a second theme of The Digital Departed — that inequalities that persist in the physical world are mirrored in peoples’ online lives. He cautions the public about narratives that promote technological progress as necessarily good. Despite the rhetoric of liberation through technological progress, we all must remain wary. There are no guarantees that mind uploading will be properly regulated, or benefit those in need. Mortal problems such as food and water shortages and human violence, as well as the lack of housing and health care, have greater priority in my view.
It is a shame, however, that the book ignores feminist perspectives on transhumanism. These contend that ideas of the soul or mind in philosophy have historically operated as a gender hierarchy — men and the masculine are considered primordial, whereas women and the feminine are treated as secondary, linked to the body and the mortal realm. Transhumanism will not benefit women or gender-diverse people unless it engages with its own inherited systems of thought and narrative.
Nonetheless, The Digital Departed is a valuable book that presents many moving stories about the way that our digital life foreshadows our biological departure. The author’s engagement with classical and modern sociological theory will be appreciated by scholars and appeal to readers of all stripes.
