DYING WELL

By Fr Jim Cogley

Our natural tendency is to deny the inevitability of death. It’s always something that is going to happen to someone else. A man said to his wife that when one of them would die he would go on a world cruise! It becomes obvious when working with those who coming close to passing over that it is the ones who have lived well that die the best. Having lived well doesn’t mean to have made no mistakes or never blotted one’s copybook. It does mean to have taken risks with the game of life and allowed mistakes to have been part of the learning process. When the curtain is finally coming down its not usually what has been done that comes back to trouble someone but the life they never allowed themselves to lead, the unlived life. Another common regret is to have wasted too much time and energy holding onto hurts and resentments. At the point where one’s true character is about to be exposed the stature of a person is never the walls or obstacles that have been placed in their way but their choice to surmount and look over them.

The quality of a person’s death so often reflects the quality of their life. As we live so shall we die carries a certain truth. We come into the world with closed fists and in death our hands open out. For many that is far too late, the lesson has never been learnt during life, and it can make the dying process extremely difficult. The person of mature years who has practiced the art of letting go in life, the way of non-grasping, can usually and

gracefully yield up their spirit. In other words the more inner work someone has undertaken of not being identified with roles and externals the easier the process can be. This contrasts with the one who having always held on in life will hold on to life only to have it forcefully taken from them. One lady coming close to her end said that she was at the stage where she was allowing herself to let go of the many roles she had played in life like daughter, teacher, wife, mother, granny and she was doing so in order to come home to who she really was. This was a profound statement since the essence of death has to be letting go of all that we are not in order to come home to who we really are.

The ideal way to die has to be with open hands and with nothing left to do except die. Unfortunately, this is not the case for many, if not most. As we journey through life we can shelve so many issues in the mistaken belief that once out of sight they are out of mind. They may be out of conscious memory but having been consigned to the unconscious for so long they will seek their day of recognition and that may be in the time preceding death. This resurgence of unintegrated material can greatly complicate and extend the dying process. For those of a prayerful disposition, painful things that were offered up may not have gone anywhere and are now very much to the fore. Traumas that were part of one’s life no longer belong to the past but can be alive in the present where often misunderstood they cause intense suffering.

A ninety-six-year-old religious sister was trying to die for six months. Eating nothing and drinking little it was a mystery as to why she was still alive. The key lay in someone asking the right question and it was about her mother who had died when she was just six. Immediately the tears of a six-year-old began to fall and for the first time in ninety years she was able to let go her mother. That night she passed peacefully. This is one of the greatest obstacles to a peaceful passage that is not always recognized. Griefs that have not been unresolved in life can prevent a person from dying with ease. Holding onto someone in life can cause us grief and it is this holding on that can prevent us from dying peacefully. Allowing someone to tell their story is crucial, and even if the person is not compus mentus their hearing is strongly believed to be the last to go, talking about loved ones in their presence and the need to release them can be a powerful aid to bring immediate and obvious relief.