Peoples attitudes are a result of education and experience. As noted above, modern society is more isolated from death (or birth for that matter) than in the past, or the 3rd world.
Like the other healthcare providers in this thread, I’ve seen death that was the end of suffering, and death that was a tragic waste. Sometimes to be fought against tooth and nail, sometimes to be welcomed, even encouraged.
Honestly, I feel sorry for people whose’s first close encounter is when the face their own or their loved ones death.
My brother was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer about 2 weeks ago. I am battling with random thoughts and memories. We are 11 1/2 months apart and were like twins most of our lives. He works in the Pharm industry and has terrific insurance and connections. I don’t have to worry about the quality of care or the stature of the hospital. They start radiation next Tuesday. I am trying to envision what he will go through and am attempting to mentally prepare myself. Most in his position live about 7 1/2 months. Hope and realism are battling in my mind now. He will fight hard. I feel very sad .
I am reading sites to educate myself. But we are snowflakes and everyone is unique.
I voiunteered for Hospice work a number of years, It is very rewarding work. Holding hands, being there as someone crosses over. It is not scary, not something to be afraid of, it is a part of life. Most people are afraid of the unknown, and therefor fearful of death. Those anchored in self-knowledge, the understanding of life and death, have no fear. It is a good thing you do. Keep it up.
I both fear and look forward to it. I feel the same about getting married, although that may never happen. Part of me can’t wait for it to end, but I still wear my safety belt.
You won’t find “normal” in the US consumerist culture with its sole priority and interest to consume and satisfy immediate bodily or emotional needs at the cost of everything else that makes us humans.
You are dealing with an existential issue that is always present in the minds of every living human being that ever walked, and will ever walk this planet (or others).
The only way to deal with it is to acknowledge that human beings are self-centered beings that are unaware of how insignificant they are in the true nature of existence - the universe.
So, in their last hours of life, if you can appease their emotional needs with a kind word, that would be very good and very commendable on your part. We will all face the same circumstances at some point and we will all look to others to justify and validate our existence, even if it is with appeasing us emotionally, because that’s all we can easily comprehend.
To the people that tell you that this is “depressing”, tell them you do this because you have a grasp of the state of human existence at our time of death.
They will be puzzled but hopefully they will appreciate your wisdom.
When I used to work in the reception area in an ER, they used to wheel the people past me and I always saw the look of terror in the faces, that really comes back to me.
Now granted having a heart attack and thinking you’re dead or going to be, is different, but I seen quite a few people on their way to death and they know it and they are absolutely terrified, or rather they look like it on their faces.
I used to have a very healthy attitude about death. It was a part of life, there could be such a thing as a “good death”, yada yada. I volunteered for several Hospices, led grief groups, taught others how to lead grief groups, and counseled people with terminal illnesses (I am a psychologist). I had experienced the death of a very close friend, my grandparents, and my father. And then my husband died last March, at age 32, of kidney cancer. He died ten weeks after diagnosis. I didn’t know shit about death or grief. Now I hate death, and am traumatized by having been with my husband when he died. I am glad I was, for his sake. It wasn’t a lovely, natural process, though, and I have relived it a thousand times. Death is easy when you are a professional, or when it comes as it should. But you can’t compare those deaths to the difficult ones, and trust when I say this: You don’t know what it is like until you have been there. Good thing, too, or you wouldn’t be able to do your work. Death can be awful, and hateful, and wrong. It isn’t, at least not always, the other bookmark to birth, just a lovely passage, a part of life. It is the end of life, and in Rick’s case, the ripping of his life from him.