My week started with a text message from dad saying that our dog died. He wasn't feeling well lately, but it didn't seem that the end was that close. And the next thing we know, the happy puppy that would make me go flying because he saw something exciting on the opposite side of the yard is gone.
The next thing I learned was that my good friend's dad passed away. He was pretty young and wasn't sick. Boom, and he isn't here anymore.
The work recently also brought me across several people that were dealing with the untimely losses of their loved ones. While talking to them, I could feel their pain. Even though it's been some time since the tragedy, their wounds were very raw and deep.
I think it took me about three years to be able to start talking about my grandpa's death. It's been nine years since he unexpectedly died, and I don't think I've actually fully accepted it yet.
Examples can go on and on because death happens to every single one of us and everything alive is surrounding us. But it was our reaction to death that made me think deeper about how we talk about it, I mean how we don't talk about it.
Even though death is as natural as other parts of our lives, we prefer not to talk about it. And when it happens, especially without a long history of disease first, it comes as a complete surprise to most people I know.
Remember the end of most kids' stories and fairytales? "And they lived happily ever after…" Only bad guys can die. Since childhood, we avoid not only talking but even thinking about death. And then when it comes closer, it pulls the carpet from under us and often paralyzes.
That common reaction made me think that probably to live fuller, we should learn to talk about this unspoken taboo and try to think about death without that paralyzing fear.
Most of the time we ignore, avoid or deny even the possibility of the death of others and even more our own. Life and death are a paradox. When life begins a person instantly gets a step closer to death, which could have made life meaningless, however, we still live, love and laugh.
Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology Carl Gustav Jung wrote that we use such stamps as everyone will die one day and no one will live forever as our lifesavers and live as we were immortal. Just like in fairytales we protect kids from the notion of death. Many parents don't take kids to a funeral and tell them that people or animals that die go on a very long vacation without a return ticket.
Psychologists say that the funeral and the death itself are scarier for adults, who transfer that fear over to kids. The same happens when the topic is avoided. We grow up knowing that death is scary. We see a lot of death on TV and it appears in our language (i.e. I'd die for it), but it's sublimation, it's not real.
We don't see it too often and we don't see it close until someone we cared for dies. The unknown is what scares most of us, and even the belief systems struggle with fulfilling it. The loneliness of death is another part that adds on to our fear.
But talking about death and seeing it closer allows us to slowly accept the fact that it's a part of life. And even though we came up with many ways to alleviate the suffering caused by the fear of death, we are still afraid of it.
However, the research shows that people who lived life the way they wanted are often less afraid of death than those with regrets. Which is another thing that can be changed if we actually keep death in mind throughout our lives and thus try to live to the fullest. In other words, instead of looking back and regretting that we didn't forgive someone 40 years ago, we can just do so along the way, because one day we are going to die and that's something we wouldn't want to worry about. If we remember about death it becomes a criterion of life.
Besides, when we try to avoid thinking about death, thus pretending that we can escape the fear, we often develop anxiety since that fear gets us one way or the other. And that anxiety grows bigger coming in through our nightmares or turning into a different psychological issue.
We need to face that fear. Will it help us overcome it? Most definitely no, but it will enhance our life experience, and possibly will help us to meet the news about death happening around us easier.
