Dealing with death

I thought I would have a lot to say about death. Now I am not sure that I do, but I wanted to get this one quote out of the way.

"It appears that people who have gone through a life of suffering, hard work, and labor, who have raised their children and been gratified in their work, have shown greater ease in accepting death with peace and dignity compared to those who have been ambitiously controlling their environment, accumulating material goods, and a great number of social relationships but few meaningful interpersonal relationships which would have been available at the end of life."

This is from On Death and Dying by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross.

It makes more sense if you have read the book. For example, the part about children does not mean so much that death is hard to accept if you are childless, but if you have children and have not been able to finish raising them, then letting go is harder.

The five stages are pretty well known (if not deeply understood), but the most striking example of how the stages are not linear had to do with bargaining and children. Someone might bargain just to see the children grow and graduate, then to see them married, then to see them have children. It can be hard saying goodbye to spouses and siblings and friends, but the responsibility felt to children is different, and it's a factor.

The whole quote is a bit of a run-on sentence anyway, but I have an affinity for those. It may be best to break it down.

Greater ease in accepting death with peace and dignity:

• Life has included suffering, hard work, and labor
• Children have been raised
• Have been gratified in their work

Greater difficulty/less peace and dignity in accepting death:

• Ambitiously controlling their environment
• Accumulating material goods (probably also ambitiously)
• A great number of social relationships but few meaningful interpersonal relations

I know some of them stick out as wrong at first. Why does life have to include suffering? But if your first trial is facing your own mortality, that's a really dramatic toss into the deep end. Also, some of my suffering has allowed me to see a certain relief in death. I'm not saying that I'm sincerely longing for it now, but I can definitely spot the upside.

I think it is similar for work. A life of too much ease and idleness doesn't prepare you to handle much. It's not just accomplishing things, and having to do so; there is the learning and getting things wrong and then getting better at them. There's a lot that goes into that.

Work can be very gratifying, but it isn't automatically. I'm glad that was mentioned. I think it's important that everyone has the opportunity for that.

Of course, whenever opportunities for meaning and satisfaction are taken away from some people, it's usually in the service of someone else trying to accumulate wealth. As crucial as it is that material goods will not be satisfying on your death bed, it's important to also know that it isn't satisfying when you are still in the midst of life either. There have been a few articles recently about poor millionaires and why they can't relax or stop accumulating; it's twisted. Maybe the attempt to control things is a different stab at gratification, but that doesn't work either. They probably should try something else.

And relationships. It's not just that we need each other, though we do. We need to connect to each other in meaningful ways.

This is important, because we all die. I hate to dash any hopes you have pinned on the singularity, but we all die. It is worth being able to deal with it.