As I write this I am waiting for my mother to die. She is 90 years old and has end-stage Alzheimer’s Disease. I saw her earlier today, lying in bed sleeping comfortably. She looked peaceful and calm. Clearly the hospice staff had done a wonderful job managing her agitation and pain. I was tempted to wake her to try and “connect” with her before she passes away but I just couldn’t. Perhaps tomorrow when I visit her at the assisted living facility she’s lived at for nearly two years she’ll be awake.
Watching her slowly slip from this life has touched me, but not in a negative way. Yes, it has caused me to once again reflect on my own mortality, which can obviously be disturbing. On the other hand, it has motivated me to explore the subject of death in a way I know I should have already done. After all, at 57 I am way past the halfway point in my own life, and death is getting closer to me every day.
The times I have mustered the courage to contemplate my own death have, until now, been only half-hearted attempts to come to grip with life’s most serious concern. Everything else pales in comparison to the fact that death is real and inevitable. In my field of public health we speak of “preventable causes of death” like smoking and eating unhealthy diets. As public health professionals we dedicate ourselves to finding the most effective ways to prevent unnecessary deaths and prolong people’s lives. But we are never under any illusions. Nothing we do can prevent death from occurring for every individual.
Death is the ultimate problem of humanity, yet we speak of it very little. I don’t know about you but I want to be better prepared to deal with my own demise when it approaches than I am now. So this is my attempt to prepare myself to deal with life’s real problem – death.
For most of us the solution to the problem of death is religion. Religion provides us with beliefs and rituals that explain and portray death in ways that believers find comforting and even satisfying. Religion gives death meaning and meaning enables coping. When we understand the meaning of something, even something we also find frightful and disturbing, we are better able to accept it and cope with it. For example, in Judeo-Christian teachings death is the result of mankind’s disobedience toward God. The good news is that God still loves us and has provided an antidote for death, namely, life after death. Many people find this explanation not only satisfying but powerfully motivating for living their lives according to the other traditions and teachings found in the Hebrew and/or Christian scriptures.
Other religions also provide explanations and ceremonial responses to death that help their adherents deal with the problem of death. On the other hand, many people find religious characterizations of death and the proper human response to it as being unbelievable and unacceptable. For some, religious teachings concerning death seem to be based on mythology rather than established fact. Believing them requires one to “suspend” rational thinking and ignore scientific evidence. After all, the most sensitive measuring devices ever designed have never detected any signs of life after death.
So are we left with only two choices when it comes to death – believing the “evidence of things not seen” as religious doctrine would have us do, or accepting secular explanations for death and pursuing non-religious approaches to prepare for it?
For most of my life I have held onto the promises of religion when it comes to death, particularly the Christian religion. But this has not come easily or without personal turmoil. Religious faith does conflict with modern understandings of reality and anyone who says it doesn’t is being disingenuous by minimizing the intellectual dissonance experienced by many who have genuinely tried and failed to reconcile religion and science. There are religious statements that simply cannot be verified outside of the faith experience of individuals. For many individuals who hold such beliefs, they are real, true and altogether factual. However, no one can enter into the experience of another to “see” the evidence underlying their faith beliefs. I have wrestled with this myself over the years and to be perfectly honest, have never been able to dispel all the doubts that result from serious reflection on ultimate issues like death and dying.
My religious friends may say that faith doesn’t require evidence, it’s not based on scientific fact, rather it comes from an inner assurance that comes once we believe. Or they may respond by saying that whether one believes the teaching of scripture or not does not change the fact that what is true is true, and what the scriptures teach about death is true whether we believe it or not. Both of these explanations may be correct, but for someone grappling with the reality of death they sound like superficial statements that rely on subjective interpretation or circular reasoning rather than verifiable certainty. It is understandable why religious attempts to address the problem of death do not appeal to many people.
What can we be certain of when it comes to death? Actually, there are some things we can all agree on when it comes to the “facts” of death.
First, everyone will die. Second, there are many different beliefs and interpretations regarding what happens after we die. Third, no one has indisputable proof concerning what, if anything, happens to an individual after death beyond the fact that their body decomposes over time. Fourth, science, theology, philosophy, psychology, social science and the humanities all seem incapable of producing the irrefutable evidence we all wish existed. Sixth, the decision regarding what we think about death and how that thinking impacts how we live our lives is entirely up to us as individuals. And finally, death is an intensely individual experience which, like faith, prohibits anyone from entering into another’s experience. The obvious result is that no one who has died can inform those who remain alive about their experience of dying (laying aside for the moment the claims of those who have had so-called near-death experiences).
No proof, just a variety of ideas, theories and hypotheses; no testimonies from individuals that have gone through the experience; no data, measurements, or observations.
With so much at stake, it’s a shame we have so little to go on. That is, for me, the real dilemma that is at the core of the problem of death – how do you form an opinion about something for which evidence is lacking and on which the world’s authoritative sources have achieved no consensus? Let alone, how do you prepare yourself for the inevitable experience of death and whatever lies beyond it?
