Many years ago, when my middle son was nine, my mother suffered a series of illnesses that left us all rattled. Dinner time was our space for a lot of meaningful conversation, so it was during dinner that he asked, “What next?”  And I replied, “She could die.” That set off a loud wail and our week of discussing death at the dinner table.

We covered a number of topics including:  what is the difference between spirit, mind, and body? They were raised to understand we were all these things, but we did some silence, awareness, and breathing exercises to experience the difference. I reminded them that they had all spontaneously remembered past lives when they were younger. What do you think happens to the spirit and mind when the body passes? My middle son was four when my husband (not his father) died and I reminded him that he received messages from him for weeks and that I was receiving the same messages. How do we all want to be remembered after we pass? What values do we want to pass on? What kind of ceremony do we want to mark our passing?

I have been blessed with a number of role models in dying. My mother was a rare person as very few people of her generation were able to do the kind of transformative work that she pursued. However, during a visit when she was 82, I still felt I needed to open the discussion about her death. “Mom, you’re an old broad now and we need to have the death talk.”  She replied, “Tree, I’m ready to die.” Seeing the expression on my face, she added, “This isn’t a depressed statement. I’ve had a rich, full life and I see death as my next big adventure.” Years later, when she did pass, while I wasn’t able to make it physically back in time, I felt her passing, I got that she wanted me to give her eulogy and I felt her joy on entering ‘her next big adventure.’

The next amazing death I experienced was that of my Spirit mom, Ellen. She was a well-known environmentalist. She was being presented with an award for her work and noticed that she was slurring her words. The next day, she found out that she had brain cancer that had metastasized and she was dying. Without missing a beat, she set up hospice at her house, stopped eating and drinking, and prepared to die. I got the message that she was dying, called her and prepared to drive across the state the next day. Ellen had a huge circle of friends and people were at her house around the clock. Phone calls kept coming in.  Ellen had the phone on her chest and answered all the calls. I guess many people were at a loss as to what to say to someone who was dying and I’ll never forget the caller who asked, “How are you?” When Ellen responded, “I’m fine,” I had to leave the room to laugh out loud. I sat with her for a day. She would drift in and out. I asked if she was going to the other side. She said that she was. I asked how it was and she said, “Peaceful.” I asked her if she was coming back and she told me that she believed so. Ellen asked me to tell everyone not to touch her body as she was trying to leave.

Currently, there is a young acquaintance dying from untreatable cancer, chronicling her journey on Facebook. She is doing so with such grace, courage, awareness, and life, that just the thought of her and the gift she is giving brings tears of gratitude.

In the agency I founded and ran for 22 years, we helped people who had lost a loved one to homicide. The people I trained to resolve the traumatic aspects of their death and help them with bereavement had to be comfortable with death. As part of their training, they were instructed to discuss death at the dinner table. When I speak in public forums, I encourage people to have death as a dinner time conversation. If we set up coping mechanisms, if we work out the details, if we fully discuss everything about a topic, we are less likely to be traumatized by it. Even death. Recently, someone who heard me advise that about a decade ago contacted me as her husband died suddenly. She told me she wished she had followed my advice.

We are also less likely to be traumatized by a death if we are able to work out our unresolved issues with the person before he or she dies. For this to happen, the other person has to be capable of doing their own work. When that isn’t possible, the task is to accept them as they are, accept that you’ve done all that you can and that your lesson is to find peace with that.

How did our week of death for dinner end? My middle son came with all the “endearing’ characteristics of both a middle child and a very talented artist. At the end of our week of discussion, I let him know that if I were to die prematurely, I would come back as a kid he deserved! And he was happy with that.

Photo by Dania Elisai Arte
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