Death and Dying ReflectionJustin Morton

Death and dying has always been something that I think about. My first fear of dying came from a conversation that a friend of my mother had with her. He told the story of Adam and Eve and talked about if you sin you will go to hell when you die. I was around 10 years old when I heard the story and it made paranoid about dying. One of my main fears was what happens when you die? I now view dying as a natural process and I dont believe in heaven or hell, so that makes my thoughts a lot clearer and positive about it. I believe that when you die, you decompose and dont come back just like everything else, were just a part of a rotation.

Being diagnosed with terminal illness and knowing that you dont have much longer would definitely make you have a different perspective on life and what youve accomplished throughout it. I think, if I were in that position I would make sure that I was at peace and have resolved any conflicts with anyone that is important in my life. Being in a hospice, I think that health care professionals do their best to help people be at peace and are more worried about how the person is feeling, rather than viewing them as a disease/illness. The focus is on making the best of the situation and helping the person keep a positive attitude.

Each of us has the resources to embrace someones suffering as our own. To me this statement means that most of us have the capacity to be empathic towards someone whos suffering, and really helps us to reflect on how the person is feeling and thinking. Being around someone in their last stages of life would really bring your own mortality into question. Every time I hear about someone who is living with a terminal illness, it feels like I can almost feel what theyre going through.

The only part that really bothers me about death and dying is the fact that its a mystery and I dont know 100% what happens afterword. Many things in our life can be solved and this is one of the great mysteries and probably will always be. There are people in the quantum physics field who are researching what happens when you die and they say that the soul might actually travel to one of the many other galaxies out there when you die... Its an interesting theory and Im trying to stay with the studies to see what comes out of it.