[Abbara]

I get the difference. Technically different, I agree. As a nurse, I witnessed lots of sacred moments both in birth and death. I was at the bedside of a woman, documented on telemetry as dead, who when I called her name, turned her head and answered me. She went on to live another six months. Her daughter told me she could never say "I love you" to them, but after this, she told them over and over.

Personally, I had a close call as a child, probably three incidents at least and my child mind did not fear or carry forth conscious fear. As an adult, heart attack, I expected Jesus and the Angels to show up with my mother to fetch me at a moments notice. They didn't. I do not fear death, only pain with no morphine handy.

What I find more disturbing... I see dead people, dead inside just waiting for their bodies to catch up. Spirits squashed flat either from unresolved judgements about the evilness of everything "other" or from being devalued until they believe it.

I found it interesting that a medical survey several years ago declared that the most valuable technical progress which adds true value to our quality of living was the hospice movement.