After a recent death in the family, I started thinking that most of the beliefs we hold about death have been so charged by religious doctrine or by living in a culture that is so afraid of death that it denies it altogether, we have a very unnatural relationship with the end of life.
When someone dies, people don’t know what to say. The whole atmosphere becomes awkward. Is it awkward because we are face to face with the suffering of someone experiencing grief? Do we feel helpless because there is really nothing we can do to ease this kind of pain and loss?
Because the subject of death is largely taboo, we have not learned a way to talk about it naturally. Everyone experiences loss differently and processes it differently. Because it is such an intensely personal experience, perhaps that is why we have not found a common language.
There is no right thing to say, there is no right thing to do. That is why we feel helpless in the face of our own or others’ grief. Perhaps the only thing we really need is compassion, knowing that we are all the same and that we all suffer at times. As author Stephen Levine says, “When your fear touches someone’s pain, it becomes pity; when your love touches someone’s pain, it becomes compassion".
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