Death and Dying

I’m wondering if we are doing our youth a disservice by not allowing death to be a part of our natural lives? When my mom was a kid, people got old, or sick and they probably got some medical care if at all possible, and friends and neighbors helped out as much as they could, and then folks just died. They weren’t necessarily shoved off behind sterlized hospital doors, or a hospice. And folks expected to see death too. Children died. Animals and pets also lived and died and families buried them.

When my grandparents died, there was very much a “community” feel to it. The outpouring of love from friends, neighbors and distant family was very meaningful. My father-in-law’s death also brings back GREAT memories. He was such a neat guy anyway that his viewing in a funeral home had a party atmosphere. It was sad too but mostly it was a celebration of his life from those who were honored to know him.

When my mother-in-law died, I did not keep my children from going up to her casket. Kids were running around that room all day and sometimes they would run up and pat her hand, or just look, and then they’d run down stairs to eat some of the goodies people had left there. It seemed so natural.

My kids did not get to see Raphael. He came while they were sleeping, but I did take pictures and have one of my favorites framed. So yea, on my buffet are pictures of all my children and their dead baby brother. It’s no big deal. We talk about this baby as my 7th child. And we even include Raphael in family jokes – like when one of the kids ask me which one is my favorite! But the point is that his death hasn’t been hidden, forgotten, a deep painful part of life that we have hidden.

I have thought recently about the story on Jane’s blog and how death, particularly the death of our babies is handled in our culture. Have we given our kids the wrong idea about life? It seems that young adults have the idea that life, if difficult, short, painful, terminal, is somehow better off being controlled somehow. It’s that whole message in our society that a happy life is one we have control over. The era of fast food, fast pain relief, fast solution that can be found and implemented in a 1/2 hour sit com or 60 minute drama. Our kids and young adults aren’t learning, or haven’t learned how to live and accept the pain and grief of the moment and so they perceive it as unbearable, something to get over, something to avoid.

I don’t know what the answer is. Maybe for the older ones it is helping the elderly in our parish more, and seeing how a life of faith is part of preparing for death, or not. I know that it’s NOT shielding them from death, or from disappointment or set backs or consequences. But it is a big job to be heard over the other messages that counter that in the culture.

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