Reactions To Death:

[Starman]

Originally Posted by onehope

Starman,

Some very interesting words that have given me some comfort.
I am a seeker ,still seeking to figure out what this life and death is all about. Life's journey with all the knowledge, interactions and relationships we make seems to me to be too complex to just end..and I have felt there must be something more after death ?

I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that there is something more after the human body dies. I do not label it “good” or “bad,” rather I feel like human death is natural, the only question is how and when. But these too are not relevant if we savor the silent moment. We already exist in the “afterlife.” Our consciousness is not physical. We peer into this physical existence through a human body enmeshed with its characteristics. So enmeshed that lots of people think they are their body. The physical body is a marvelous tool that we get to use and experience. It is my unmistakable experience that the fabric of what we are deep within is unimaginable, overwhelmingly saturated and dripping, with the presence of rich, thick, unconditional love. It feels like home like you have never experienced home before. That kind of comfort, fulfillment, and love, in the extreme. This has been my very vivid experience. Yet, I strive to honor the gift of this physical existence.

Interesting topic!

Yesterday, for a moment, i was thinking about dying (just for myself). Not wanting to be afraid of it. But then i realized it´s not that i am afraid of dying but afraid of loosing everyone and some of life.

I remember when i was a teen, there were several moments where i would imagine what it would be like when i would be dead. It scared me that the earth then would move on without me...this was a very heavy feeling.

This started changing soon after.
I started working in an elderly home and witnessed several deaths. Not very hard to deal with, because these people had reached pretty high ages. I learned that i found the actual dying process...witnessing it, what you can see and sense in people, very interesting and mostly beautiful.

After the elderly home i started working in a hospital where i worked in the ICU for 15 years. It could make me feel sort of humble when i had to accompany someone when he/or she was going to die or dying. Of course, lots of times they weren´t conscious any more. Then i would talk to them mostly through thoughts and try to make family feel as comfortable as possible around it. And when still conscious and the situation was still ´good´ i would talk with them. Trying to find out who they are and were and how they felt at that right moment.

Looking back at that most beautiful job it´s those situations i can miss most. To me, taking care of someone close to leaving life (wow, this still brings me to tears) feels so very special...in those most critical and vulnerable moments you are able to really connect very deeply with the other...it´s like a soul to soul moment. It´s a connection that i do not often experience in normal daily life.

[Starman]

Irisa, thank you very much for sharing your journey. We have had similar experiences. I worked in the medical field for 21-years and then switched over to the mental health field, worked another 21-years as a therapist, social worker, and later a college instructor. I had a very challenging, and wonderful career.

Started back in 1964 when I joined the U.S. Army at the age of seventeen, my mother signed for me to join the army, and they made a combat medic out of me. The army sent me to Vietnam 2-years later at the age of nineteen, and at 19-years old I was sewing people up, delivering babies, and holding people in my arms as they took their last breath. After the army I became an ambulance EMT and then later worked in a hospital and then a hospice.

It was very confronting and stressful work but it helped me look deeper into myself. I worked on the burn unit at University Hospital in Denver, Colorado. A family’s home heating system exploded, mom, dad, and two kids were all in separate room on the burn unit. Third degree burns over most of their body. They look like raw hamburger meat. The mother, who was barely conscious, asked me to read her Bible to her. I am not a Christian, but the Bible was next to her on a stand so I picked it up, opened it, and began to read to her. She died as I was reading. I have lots of stories like that..

I have seen hundreds of people die, in all sorts of situations, homicide, suicide, terminal illness, sudden death, etc. I remember working on a hospital ward, I was very young, and one of my patients was terminally ill. A “no-core,” which means if he goes into cardiac arrest do not do CPR, just let him die peacefully. I have also been in triage situations as and ambulance paramedic on the street where I had to decide who I could help and who I should just let die. A triage trauma situation can be deeply challenging. You can not help everyone, that’s the way it was in Vietnam, so you help who you can and you let the others die. All of these experiences have been my teachers, and they helped me get in touch with my own mortality..

Wow, your experiences already as a 19 year old...and i think back then you where all alone with your thoughts and feelings?

In the ICU we sometimes asked ourselves how it is possible to manage all these stressful, painful and sad situations. I remember when someone would say to me that he wouldn´t be able to do my job, i would answer that he could. But years later i concluded that this is not for everyone, still not knowing how some can do this work and others cannot. And what it is that i am able to.

I remember a nightshift in the ICU in a room with 4 patients. There was one above 80. One under 30. One had to make room for a person in a more critical situation. As soon as this critical person had moved into the room she crashed. While giving CPR another person starting getting very critical and we called in family. Still giving CPR a third person crashed. It got weirder every hour. The first died halfway, the next a couple of hours later. The third before 9 in the morning. The person above 80 survived. We talked, even sort of laughed about what we just had been through...and we went home...

And another time where i worked 5 day shifts. In the first 3 ´my´ patients died...´planned´, because really everything had been tried...During my 5th shift i took care of someone after heart surgery...finally someone i could talk with...so that made up al little for the days before...and then while chatting he crashed and died...i remember how i went to get his family afterwards...i saw that in another room someone had died as well...that was when i ´crashed´...And the next moment you just go on...

I think for me it is mostly about being there for the other...really being there...understanding what is happening to him/her on a subconscious level(?). You just do it...

Did you take your experiences with you the mentall health field? (of course to some degree...but did you work with people then who for instance were close to dying? Or a whole other direction?)

[Starman]

I can really tell that you are experiencing this; I got very powerful feelings from what you just shared. God bless you Irisia. Being with a dying person and hearing their last words is profound.

The caregiver as a person, and not just a job title, is very important. Healthcare workers are going through this right now. I used to teach entry level counselors, and tell them if you are going to be working with other people’s stress, then you need to have a great stress program for yourself.

Quiet meditation was/is part of my personal stress program. I have often found silence to be a more than adequate companion, when face to face with someone who is dying, especially someone who is incapacitated as many are in an ICU. I have learned how to work with my own energy/presence, quiet my mnd, and in my career have felt the presence of others as their body died and they left. Staying firmly in the moment, and making time afterwards to cry, or grieve, is very important also.

What you shared, about people dying and making room for other patients, etc. I can relate to that. There is overlap between the medical field and the mental health field. The experience I gained in the medical field helped greatly when I switched over to the counseling and teaching professions. From a very young age my thrust was to learn about myself. “Know Thyself” summarizes my spiritual path. The healthcare profession not only gave me the opportunity to serve others, it also gave me a poignant opportunity to learn about my own self.

My medical, mental health, social work, teaching career, was preparatory for me to enter into a deeper spiritual path. One gave me some preparation for the other. It was definitely a very loud calling for me. I had a lot of growing to do, in ways that I did not even know existed. I did not know what my needs were, but fortunately I was allowing myself to be moved and guided by something deeper inside of me. I had to make my effort but things came together for me rather serendipitously.

Having been exposed to so much pain and suffering at a very young age I was sort of insulated. I have shared many times here on this forum how I lost my eyesight in Vietnam, was totally blind for about 5-years, and went through more than a dozen surgeries to regain my eyesight. Interesting how my optic nerve was good, but I could not see because of damage to my eyeball structure, which was repaired.

Going below the surface has always worked for me. I have seen terminally ill patients accept their death much more then their loved ones, or the staff that was caring for them. When I was in Vietnam and worked on someone who was shot up pretty bad, and they lived, I would not take credit for their survival. Because if I am working on a person and that person dies, I used to take credit for that as well. You do the best that you can at any given moment. Looking back on my career there was nothing else that I was drawn to like working in direct medical patient care.

was totally blind for about 5-years, and went through more than a dozen surgeries to regain my eyesight. Interesting how my optic nerve was good, but I could not see because of damage to my eyeball structure, which was repaired.


That must have been a tough experience? Reading about this it almost feels like this was something that had to happen...not in a carmic way or something like that...but like your body/mind ´just´ needed to adjust to your spirit...after all you learned from what you experienced... Hm, it might sound strange what i write here...

Interesting what you write about what you teached the entry level counselors. How to deal with the stressfull job. I think this is something where here in holland nursing schools lack.

Unfortunedly i couldn´t continu working in the ICU, because suddenly my body started acting weird. While writing this it makes me think of what i just wrote about you having been blind for 5 years. Being it sort of a time of adjustment. I have a job in an elderly home again...working on quality in nursing. It´s okay for the moment, but in this COVID time it can be quite confronting to know that i cannot go back to the ICU and be of any help. The last few years sometimes feel like i am sort of dead (not depressed or so)....like i have to find out who i am without a person in need for care.

I really have been living through my work...it always was all or nothing...

Sorry, this is becoming somewhat off-topic...

[Starman]

I do embrace that the universe seeks balance on every level, and that we are subject to cosmic adjustments to facilitate that balance. We are just as much part of the universe as the planets and stars. One might say we are the universe.

Nothing is really personal, although everything is subjective. It is subjective because everything is connected and when we feel a connection it may feel like it is happening to us. When in truth it just may be happening for us. We often put things in motion that we are not aware of ourselves.

The process of spiritual transformation is automatic. The only thing that slows it down is us. Although I find little use in being judgmental. It is a dance of shadow and light, and we get to choose our dance partner.

[Astrolopology]

It'll be interesting to see.. can't wait