October 27, 2005

• The subject choices this week on Socrates Cafe are “What is an excellent death?” and “What is love?” I found the choice to be difficult, not because I have so much to say about those topics, but because I am not sure that I really have anything very interesting or profound to say. I did choose to write about an excellent death after some internal debate.

  Having worked in health care for some 35 years now, either as an RN or as an educator, I have come to the conclusion that our culture and particularly the health care profession, does not handle death very well. It is often seen as a failure, something that should not happen and is to be prevented at all costs. When you think about it, that really makes no sense, because it is the one thing that we all have in common and that we cannot avoid. We are all going to die.

  If we accept that fact, then death should not be a topic of horror and something to be avoided, yet for many people it is. Why is that? It is a natural phenomenon.

  Several years ago, I took a class sponsored by the thanatology program at the University of Minnesota. It was really a very good class and one of the speakers there particularly impressed me. He said that one of the reasons that we fear death so much in our culture is that we do not value life. That really struck me as a very wise statement. The point was that we do not welcome life. We limit family size so that we can have more possessions because we think that that is what makes life worthwhile. In the end, though, we cannot take those possessions with us. In order to enjoy them, we must continue to live. To die, then, becomes to leave behind everything that we value.

  I know that I have made some choices that favor possessions over life. My husband and I had 2 children. We did that deliberately because we thought that it would make it easier for us to give them the lives that we wanted them to have. We instilled that value in them, also. Our daughter has 2 children and does not plan to have more. Our son has 1 child, and we are not sure whether or not he and his wife will have more. Does that help to increase material wealth? It certainly does. Does it show a value for life? I am not sure. Do I think that valuing life affects the way we see death? I definitely do.

  I do think that there are other factors besides limiting family size that show a lack of value for life. In our culture, I do not think that family size is going to increase. We are socialized to have small families and that is ingrained in us. But we can look at how we manage our personal and family lives. We can examine our values.

  I think that the first step towards having an excellent death is to have an excellent life, and the first step towards doing that is to really get to know yourself. What are your beliefs? What is important to you? How do you act on those things? How do you value life?

  One thing that I have realized in life is that people are more important than things. Having friends in your home is more important than having a spotless house. I am not always very good at reaching out to people. I admire those who are. I have learned, though, that the people that I hold dear are very important and that I need to work to maintain my relationships with them. I need to put the time and effort into maintaining the contact and scheduling time together with them. If I have to let other things go in order to do that, then that is the way it has to be.

  I need to look at what makes life meaningful to me. My husband and I like to travel. We like our family to go with us. We also like to go with friends. Traveling provides us with wonderful memories and shared experiences that cannot be taken away from us. It is a high priority for us. It is part of what makes life worth living.

  I think that contributing to other people in whatever way we can is also a way that we value life. My husband is better at that than I am. Each of us has talents that need to be shared and it is up to us to find ways to do that. We are not always aware of the ways in which we affect other people, but we surely do affect them. I think the most profound effects that we have are often from the simplest actions. If we have tried to make our impact on others positive, that goes a long way to making our lives worthwhile and our deaths excellent.

  To me, some degree of spirituality is also important. That may take the form of an organized religion or just a set of personal beliefs. It may include a belief in a higher power or just a concern for personal growth and goodness, including a concern for others and for the world around us. In any case, it helps us to be the people that we want and were meant to be, again making life worthwhile and showing a value and appreciation for it. If a person’s belief system includes a belief in an afterlife, life becomes a continuum and the focus shifts away from the act of dying to the continuation of living. No matter what the belief system, though, attention to personal spirituality brings inner peace, and peace is a quality that contributes to an excellent death.

  Intellectual development is also important in living an excellent life. That is what drew me to Socrates Cafe. I value discussion and sharing of ideas. It develops the mind and the soul, making me a better person. I need to make time for it. It is another pathway to an excellent death.

  So, to me, the concept of an excellent death does not include the time or conditions surrounding that death. Rather, an excellent death is one that follows an excellent life. An excellent life is one in which the person has given thought to what is important and has made the effort to do those things, whatever they might be. It is different for each person and it is not necessary for us to understand the choices made by others. It is only necessary to make our own choices thoughtfully and with purpose, to welcome life and to value it. Then, when it is time, death will be excellent.

  • 7:27 am
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