Reactions To Death:

[Starman]

There is a big difference between our philosophy about death and the actual experience of dying. We might also react differently to the death of someone else, especially a loved one, than we would react to the experience of our own death. I have seen hundreds of people die, as a combat medic in war, and ambulance paramedic in major cities, and having worked in hospitals and hospices.

Death looks different in a war where people are shooting and killing each other, etc., than it does people dying in a hospital, or people dying on the streets, in a car accident, etc. Nonetheless, death does the same thing regardless where we die. Regardless of our age, we are all always one breath away from death. The only thing is how and when, which is mostly out of our control.

How and when has different impacts on the people we leave behind, and may even have a different impact on us when we die. When: the death of a baby has more of and impact than the death of and older person; primarily because we may think of that baby’s innocence and them dying so young. In the Vietnam War I carried a dead baby in my arms and it had a more powerful effect on me than seeing my buddies die. Hard to explain, except to say that baby left behind a more powerful presence.

How: there are basically two methods by which a person dies; terminal death and sudden death. Terminal death, this is when death lingers for days, weeks, or months, and it comes from and illness or injury. COVID-19 involves terminal death, as does cancer, etc. A person can be in a coma for weeks or months and then die. It is one thing for you to accept your own death and another thing for your loved ones to accept your death. Terminal death draws out the process of dying.

Sudden death can occur in many ways, and may involve the person having a few minutes or hours before dying, or they may instantly die without warning. A person can suddenly die in their sleep, and accident, advanced undetected disease, like a heart attack, suicide, or homicide. I have seen all of these and they effect surviving loved ones differently. Usually a person has no time to think about their own death when it comes suddenly. They are here and then they are gone. A person falling off of a cliff or being stabbed will scream; are they screaming because of the pain or because they are about to die?

Medical science has determined that there are two types of death, brain death and clinical death. Usually in brain death, a person is in a coma and they are kept alive by machines. Your doctor or hospital may have something called and “Advance Directive,” it used to be called “A Living Will,” and it states, among other things, whether or not you wish to be kept alive by artificial means, machines, etc. If you do not have such a document on file, and you are in a coma, then loved ones, or the courts, will make that decision for you.

Clinical death is when your heart stops beating. Truly death is nothing more than the death of the physical body. There are also machines that can be used to keep your heart beating. But if a person has no brain activity (brain death) no heartbeat, or other vital signs, then they are declared dead. Although I have seen people declared dead, put on a slab in the morgue, and that person later woke up and was very much alive. Some people do have a fear of being buried, or cremated, alive because of a false death declaration, but in many countries most people who are declared dead receive and autopsy, and an autopsy will kill you if you are not already dead.

Death is not a morbid subject for me as I have seen so much of it. Different cultures react to death differently. Most people dwell on the afterlife, or after death experience, then they do the here and now experience of dying. Most do not consider talking about the afterlife as morbid, in fact many consider that discussion pleasing or intriguing. But what I have shared here may be considered more about the morbidly of death. Does not matter, although some do hide in their philosophies or spiritual perspectives of death; the actual experience of death will be much more than our philosophy or other perspective. Still whatever brings a person comfort in their transition should be embraced.