Having Some Conversations About Death

We are all aware on some level that we will not get out of life alive.  We all will die.

How do we get more comfortable with this?  There are some unknown facts about death that we don’t know yet.  When will we die, why do so people live longer than others?  If we could just be more able to discuss and be aware that death is a fact, I think it could help us get more  accustomed to aging and then dying.

I just read an article that some people are getting together to talk philosophically about death.  I think that is a great idea.  The more exposure we have to this in a safe environment, the less fear we will have when our own time comes.

I was with my father when he died.  My mother, sister and I were around his hospital bed when he peacefully died.  We did not know what was wrong with him until the day of his funeral.  But 2 weeks earlier, he had my mom take him to the hospital.  When I got there one week before he died,  he asked me who was taking care of my sons and did I think he would ever get out of there alive.  I told him about my sons and then I said, dad, I don’t know.  Because I didn’t know.   But what I did know was that we were not going to leave him alone on his last days on earth.  My mother kept talking to him about eating and getting healthier and taking him home.  But near the end she realized that he was not going to come home and so she said to him, take care of yourself, I will be fine.  She was 58 years old and they were a month short of their 34th anniversary.  It took her awhile to be ok but that is another story.

We were thrown into his death without warning and we were there for him, just like he had been there for us in his lifetime.