Death and Dying

The sooner we make peace with death, the less frightened we will be when we confront it. It’s been said that a person can’t be fully alive and have a fear of death. As we become more comfortable with death, we become more comfortable with life.

Self-Care in the Grieving Process

For most people, the dying process, whether it be our own or that of a loved one, is one of the most challenging times of our life. We come face to face with our spiritual nature when someone we love is dying or does die. It brings up the ultimate question: the meaning of life.

We have the opportunity to live life fully in the face of our own death and those we love with an attitude of acceptance and grace. Knowledge of the afterlife can be very helpful in this process.

The process of dying was once part of the process of living. Well into the first part of the 20th century, several generations of families often resided under the same roof, and the process of dying was part of everyone’s life. Later, illness and death moved out of the home and into the hospital or nursing home. Fortunately, when circumstances allow, caring for the terminally ill today can still be done at home, with the support of hospice care.

Deathbed Visions

A deathbed vision (sometimes called a deathbed apparition) involves dying patients who see and perhaps telepathically communicate with one or more departed loves ones or departed aquaintances. When deathbed visions occur in the presence of someone in attendance with the dying patient, they can be verified.

Deathbed visions differ from patients having medication-induced hallucinations. They are real. Typically, the patient’s mood will change to one of peace and serenity following such an experience. After the apparition, they will either recover from their illness, or they will die.

Note: Death following a deathbed vision differs from a near-death experience (NDE) in which a person’s consciousness leaves the body temporarily and then returns to the body, which then recovers.

An example of a deathbed vision is when a patient sees and communicates with a deceased loved one in the presence of a caregiver or loved ones. When these visions occur in the presence of someone in attendance with the dying patient, they can be verified. Deathbed visions differ from patients having medication-induced hallucinations, for they are real.

Typically, the patient’s mood will change to one of peace and serenity following such an experience. After the vision, they will either recover from their illness or they will die.

Managing Care for the Dying

The focus of physicians caring for terminally ill patients is constrained by modern medical training, record-keeping, and economics. Medical training is not very helpful in responding to personal, as opposed to the medical, nature of dying. Our current technology places the emphasis on curing, not caring. To admit that treatment is no longer possible is to admit defeat. This is demonstrated by cases in which elderly people who are clearly at the end of their life are resuscitated. For the patient and the family, the enormity of the final transition far outweighs the medical matters.

Hospice

In 1969 Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a psychiatrist in the United States, in her book On Death and Dying gave the public a new and different way of viewing the terminal patient. This landmark book helped pave the way for the hospice care movement to take root and flourish. Her theory of the five stages of grief was embraced for many years but has largely fallen out of favor. There is no empirical evidence that her “stages of grief” theory has any validity. Everyone and every loss are different, and the bereaved should not expect their grieving to follow ordered stages.

In her book Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying, Maggie Callanan describes the role hospice care as follows:

Hospice is the main setting in which care of the dying has evolved into a natural, patient-centered approach. This special way of care is based on two principles: the dying people should be able to choose how they spend the time they have left, and that their remaining time should be as peaceful and comfortable as possible.

Maggie Callanan describes the role of a hospice nurse as follows:

A hospice nurse is part of an interdisciplinary team—doctor, nurse, social worker, chaplain, and volunteers, with other specialists such as dieticians and physical and respiratory therapists brought in as needed—whose members play two key roles: care of the patient and care of the family. The evolution of home care has meant that many types of equipment and many functions once possible only in medical facilities—professional monitoring of patients’ vital signs and delivery of intravenous pain medications—can be provided at home.

Death and Dying Resources

Organizations

Bereaved Parents of the USA (BPUSA)
BPUSA is an all-volunteer group that offers support, understanding, encouragement, and hope to fellow parents, siblings, and grandparents after the death of their loved one. BPUSA volunteers also inform and educate professionals, employers, co-workers, clergy, friends and others on the intensity and duration of parental, sibling and grandparent grief.
Forever Family Foundation
The Forever Family Foundation integrates science and spirituality to bring comfort to the bereaved.
Helping Parents Heal (HPH)
Helping Parents Heal is a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting bereaved parents shift towards hopefulness and peace of mind. HPH welcomes the open discussion of spiritual experiences and afterlife evidence in a non-dogmatic way.
National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO)
NHPCO enhances and expands access to care that addresses holistic health and the well-being of communities. As the leading organization representing hospice and palliative care providers, NHPCO works to expand access to a proven person-centered model for healthcare—one that provides patients and their loved ones with comfort, peace, and dignity during life’s most intimate and vulnerable experiences.
Share the Care (STC)
STC offers caregivers a guidebook, tools and educational information needed to reduce the stress, depression, isolation and economic hardship of caregiving. Caretakers can use STC to create a TEAM that can provide emotional, social and practical support for someone they know, including their caregiver and family as well as the individual team members throughout the caregiving journey no matter the challenge.
The Conference on Death, Grief and Belief
The conference is a consortium of educators, researchers and counselors exploring religious trauma, toxic theology, spiritual elitism and any spiritual beliefs that cause psychological harm, especially when coping with death, trauma and bereavement.
The Compassionate Friends (TCF)
The Compassionate Friends exists to provide friendship, understanding, and hope to those going through the natural grieving process after the death of a child (at any age, from any cause).

Video Presentations

“Passing On” (PBS Documentary) (56:49 minutes)
I See Dead People: Dreams and Visions of the Dying | Dr. Christopher Kerr | TEDxBuffalo” (17:25 minutes)
Rethinking Death | Exploring What Happens When We Die, Parnia Lab at NYU Langone Health, 2022 (45:17 minutes)

Articles on BeAwake.com

Books about Death and Dying

Note: Book titles are linked to amazon.com, which offers numerous book reviews.

The books referenced below are a resource for you and those you love.

Buhlman, William and Susan

Higher Self Now!: Accelerating Your Spiritual Evolution by William and Susan Buhlman, 323 pages (2016)

The second half of this book is written by Susan Buhlman regarding death and dying.

Website: Astralinfo.org

Butler, Katy

The Art of Dying Well: A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life
by Katy Butler, 274 pages (2019)

New York Times bestselling author

Website: KatyButler.com

Video: The Art of Dying Well

Byock, Ira, M.D.

Dying Well: The Prospect for Growth at the End of Life by Ira Byock, M.D., 299 pages (1997)

Ira Byock, M.D. is an award-winning leader in the field of hospice and palliative medicine. He is a past president of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.

The Four Things That Matter Most: A Book about Living
by Ira Byock, M.D., 244 pages (2014)

Website: IraByock.org

Website: HankDunn.com

Video: Hard Choices for Loving People Lecture by Hank Dunn

Fenwick, Peter and Elizabeth

The Art of Dying
by Dr. Peter Fenwick, neuropsychiatrist, and Elizabeth Fenwick, 251 pages (2008)

Video: End-of-Life-Phenomena | At Home with Peter Fenwick

Gawande, Atul, M.D.

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
by Atul Gawande, M.D., 282 pages (2017)

#1 International bestseller and #1 New York Times bestseller. Gawande is a professor at Harvard Medical School. Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, The New York Times Book Review, NPR, and Chicago Tribune.

Website: AtulGawande.com

Video: Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End | Atul Gawande | Talks at Google

Halifax, Joan, Ph.D.

Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death
by Joan Halifax, Ph.D., 204 pages (2008)

Website: Upaya.org

Hickman, Martha

Healing After Loss: Daily Meditations for Working Through Grief
by Martha W. Hickman, 370 pages (1994, 2002)

James, John and Friedman, Russell

The Grief Recovery Handbook: The Action Program for Moving Beyond Death, Divorce, and Other Losses
by John W. James and Russell Friedman, 208 pages (1989 – 2017)

James and Friedman are Founders of The Grief Recovery Institute.

Website: www.griefrecoverymethod.com

Video: Introduction to The Grief Recovery Method

Konigsberg, Ruth Davis

The Truth About Grief: The Myth of Its Five Stages and the New Science of Loss
by Ruth Davis Konigsberg, 258 pages (2011)

Video: Ruth Davis Konigsberg Discusses The Truth About Grief

Kubler-Ross, Elisabeth, M.D.

On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy, and Their Own Family
by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D., 286 pages (1969)

Dr. Kubler-Ross, a Swiss-American psychiatrist, was a pioneer in near-death studies. This is a landmark book in which she discusses her theory of the five stages of grief, also known as the “Kubler-Ross model.” However, her model has since fallen out of favor due to the absence of any empirical evidence that her “stages of grief” theory has validity.

Levine, Stephen

Healing into Life and Death
by Stephen Levine, 290 pages (1987)

Healing meditation techniques for working with pain and grief

Meetings at the Edge: Dialogues with the Grieving and the Dying, the Healing and the Healed
by Stephen Levine, 290 pages (1984)

Website: LevineTalks.com

Levy, Alexander

The Orphaned Adult: Understanding and Coping with Grief and Change after the Death of Our Parents
by Alexander Levy, 190 pages (1999)

This book is unusual in that it specifically addresses the loss of parents.

MacGregor, Betsy, M.D.

In Awe of Being Human: A Doctor’s Stories from the Edge of Life and Death
by Betsy MacGregor, M.D., 293 pages (2013)

Website: BetsyMacgregor.com

Miller, BJ, M.D. and Berger, Shoshana

A Beginner’s Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death
by BJ Miller, M.D. and Shoshana Berger, 529 pages (2019)

The book jacket describes this book, “The first and only all-encompassing action plan for the end of life.” The topics of grieving and mourning are addressed here, but it is essentially a book that covers every detail imaginable in the dying and death process. This is an extraordinary book that is worth just about everyone’s consideration to read and keep as a reference guide.

Website: THE CENTER FOR DYING & LIVING—About BJ MILLER, MD

Video: What really matters at the end of life | BJ Miller | TED

Video: A Beginner’s Guide to the End | JCCSF