Wendy--this is a very insightful, caring and personal article. Your approach to your father's death showed openness, compassion and acceptance. I agree with your plea for early education, acceptance of death and dying and understanding thereof. This may help break down some of the pervasive prejudice in our culture against aging and the aged. I believe that a vast improvement for each of us is in store if we learn to accept death as a natural part of life, to comfort those whose loved ones have died and to integrate the aging and aged as valued citizens. My deep condolensces for the loss of your father.
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The Ultimate Homework Assignment
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As I reflect on this experience, I keep thinking that with some small changes in how we as a society approach death and dying, we could make this a better experience for everyone. In school, we should teach not just about health but about the changes to the body that accompany death and dying. Give students words of comfort and acknowledgment. They will surely have opportunities to use these words with friends and family members, even in childhood.
As adults we have the ultimate homework assignment, one that we must complete before an unwavering deadline (emphasis on "dead"). Our assignment is to talk openly about death and put together a folder with our wishes in terms of health care at the end of life, who to notify after death, instructions for what should happen with our body, bibliographical information for the obituary, desired charities, finances, where important information can be found, and thoughts on a memorial service or funeral.
This information is a gift you can give to the people who will have to grieve and cope with loss while sorting through complicated logistical details in a short time frame. Often, after a death, there's no one to ask for key pieces of information, leaving relatives to search through files or old address books. Having frank discussions about both the physical process of dying, and the logistical arrangements will make death more a natural part of life. Becoming a death-acknowledging culture, rather than remaining a death-denying culture, may make that ultimate life lesson less difficult.
Wendy Uhlmann Is A Genetic Counselor And Clinical Assistant Professor Of Internal Medicine And Human Genetics At The University Of Michigan In Ann Arbor
© 2008
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