Western society does not do death and dying well – everything to do with it is often hidden, glossed over and moved beyond as fast as possible. Generally most people now will reference someone dying as someone ‘passing’ which is another ways of distancing from the process of death. Those who are experiencing death – their own or of someone they love – have different ways of coping from denial to demanding – making it difficult for others to know how to help them. Most people usually feel inadequate to comfort or support others in the face of grief.
There are many good books about different aspects of ageing and end of life. Here are the ones in my library.
- Too soon old, too late smart is an excellent book to help you review how you wish to live your life. Each short chapter reviews the factors and the things that we do to impede or, less frequently, enhance our closest relationships
- Tuesdays with Morrie is written by Mitch Albom who interviews his dying college professor to discuss lessons on how to live.
- Being Mortal is a book about the end of life where Atul Gawande explores ways to improve quality of life for patients and families. He offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person’s last weeks or months may be rich and dignified.
- Sometimes Hearts Have to Break is a series of short essays written for people facing death, to help them find understanding, acceptance and meaning in what is happening to them.
Below are some resources to understand the process of death and dying and how to be supportive.
- This 50 minute conversation with Ken Hillman, a practising intensive care specialist, explores the best care of dying patients taking into account their wishes together with the medical establishment’s desire to prolong life at all costs.
- Severe illness or impending death can create high levels of uncertainty so The Certainty Myth may give you some tools to help stabilise your your life and reduce anxiety and fear.
- Leigh Sales’s book Any Ordinary Day explores themes of being confronted with death and what happens next through interviews with ordinary people who have had high profile or challenging experiences with death.
- Journalist Sarah Ferguson chats with Richard Fidler about her investigation into the sudden death of her mother due to hospital negligence in UK.
- If you want to have a meaningful conversation with others in your life about end of life decisions, you might be interested to read about how to organise an obligation free Death over Dinner event.
- Listen to an interview with Jenny Briscoe-Hough who enables access to affordable funerals following the shock expense of organising a simple funeral for her mother.
Support through the dying process – death doulas.
There is a new field of support available to people who wish to have assistance at the end of their life for themselves and/or their families – with existential questions, wills, companionship, living wakes, funeral planning and information about care services. These people are called death doulas and you can find more information about the role and services a death doula can provide. Death doulas may be particularly important in the absence of sufficient suitable care or palliative services for people at the end of life.
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