For some people, death is a terminally ill taboo that should be feared. They avoid talking, hearing, writing, or even reading about the end of life. A hospice volunteer for 20 years, an author, and eldercare consultant, I have been told on
several occasions that death is just too depressing and final to welcome on any level.
This reluctance to examine mortality visited a friendship of mine. I
had given her a copy of my book BecomingDead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes. After reading the book with a mixture of curiosity and hesitance, she shared this book review with me. I’ll call her
Alice. She approved my writing this post.
Because Alice works in a hospital, I was somewhat
surprised to discover that she felt strongly that death, a scary stalker
of her dreams, is her enemy. She explained that death has stolen too many of her
loved ones, including pets. She worries about losing even
more. My own positive acceptance of death, which comes across clearly in my conversations
and writings, seems too accepting of
her persistent adversary. While she says she would consider
hospice care for herself in the future, she admits being a hospice volunteer caregiving terminally ill patients would be frightening.
What is her feedback regarding Becoming
Dead Right, my non-fiction book? She cares deeply about the residents’ interesting stories and my interactions with various people in the nursing home world. My original poetry,
which concludes each chapter, also pleases her. She finds the discussions on hospice, nursing homes,
caregiving, dementia, death, and bereavement very informative. She appreciates that, while the book is appealing on a universal level, it includes the often-missing voices of urban dwellers, including people of color. She finds the intergenerational school-nursing home partnerships through service-learning uplifting. The ideal nursing
home described in the last chapter is particularly impressive. Basically, she loves the book, but not the premise that there is a “right” way to die.
I am glad that this book meeting with her dreaded death demon impacts her so positively. Those of us who embrace the topic of death will continue to be
viewed with dismay by people who cope with mortality through avoidance and
resignation of themselves and loved ones as victims of death’s imagined malicious
powers. Alice’s death revelations remind us of the significance of promoting death as a natural part of life that should be
experienced with dignity by everyone.
Death conversations that we initiate can enhance
lives of fearful naysayers one person at a time. These efforts empower them slowly
with death acceptance even as they resist the message. I value Alice’s
frankness in sharing death’s distressful presence in her life and in giving me positive feedback on my book. Most of all, I commend her willingness to become a ball of
courage rolling into the high weeds of her life where the death demon lives.
Frances Shani Parker, Author
