GOD IS DEAD 0 GET OFF YOUR KNEES, SISTERS THE TROUBLES ARE OVER ‘OM SCREEN ANA sof 59 May 2003 - Facing Dying Alan Naylor-Smith reflects on his experience of having to face up to death Four years ago I was diagnosed as having Parkinson's disease. It was a shock. It also made me think about dying. Now Parkinson’s does not necessarily affect our length of life, but the disease made me feel fragile and aware in a new way of my mortality. I sat down and wrote about my fear of dying. The article lay there for a few years before I sent it to Counselling, the magazine of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy.
Slightly altered, it is reproduced here with their permission.
Facing the thought of death is not just an intellectual problem. It is also a deeply emotional one.
Facing the thought of death is not just an intellectual problem. it is also a deeply emotional one. cases too terrible. Unpleasant, probably, but I do not think it need be a source of terror. I guess that I would want to explore the process of dying with those who care for me, so that I would know what to expect. And I guess that if I can trust my frail and fading self to those around me as I drift into unconsciousness, then that may not be too terrible to face.
So I go onto the fear of death itself. Why should we fear non-being? At this point I want to state the obvious. When we fall into non-being there is no consciousness, so there can be no suffering. The dead do not have to bear the separation from loved ones, as they are not conscious, so they do not have this pain. The dying simply fall into unconsciousness, and just as pleasure ends, so too does pain. So then why should we fear this? Before we came into existence there was no pain; we simply were not. And in death it is the same. The sun will still rise As I get older and frailer I want to be honest with myself, and face the question of what I feel about my own mortality.
I do not myself believe in a life after death. I may well be wrong, but that prop, if prop it is, does not exist for me. So what I have to face is that when death comes it really is the end. At that moment we cease to be. We lose consciousness, fall into non-existence and are no more. The question then is how I feel about this momentous event—momentous, that is, for me!
People seem to fear death; we find it hard to talk about. But a fear that we have not faced is a fear that will always have power over us. Only by becoming conscious of our fears can we hope to disarm them.
So I want to seek to know of what I might be afraid.
First I want to distinguish between the thought of death and the process of dying. The fears are related but different. The process of dying is a frightening thought, and some deaths are certainly unpleasant.
However with good nursing and medical care, I believe it is true that the process need not be in most each morning, the tides will still come and go, the waves will still crash on the seashore, but I will be no more. Is that so terrible a thing to face?
I do not then believe there need be fear of nonexistence. The fear then that we experience, must be to do with whether we are ready to die; that is, the fear is about unresolved feelings about the life we have lived. Has it been good enough? And I do not mean by that, have I been a good enough person: I mean, as I look back on my life, do I feel that on the whole it has been sort of OK?
This is a difficult question. Our lives are such a mixture. I have vivid memories of so much that has been deeply good: of deep intimacy with others, of satisfying relationships, of places visited, of sights wondered at, music heard, plays or films seen, and so on. We each have our own deeply personal lists. And then there is the other side. Parkinson’s disease, other illnesses, hurts, mistakes, things that have gone wrong, painful losses, times when life has been so unfair. So alongside the feelings of contentment and gladness, there is also rage, bitterness, envy, regrets, Sof 59 May 2003 sadness and pain. I want to acknowledge these as realities for to deny them would be to be unreal and untrue. It gives me great comfort to think of myself as simply a human being, or a human animal. This allows me to be much more merciful towards myself! When hurt, I feel pain. When I feel pain I want to cry or hit out. Likewise, when I see others luckier than I in health, then I may feel envy. I do not find this a problem provided I acknowledge the existence of these feelings and do not act them out by giving others a hard time of it. And if others can say to me, "Of course you feel that, and I understand", then that is a great comfort. Rage, regrets, sadness, and so on can stay there moderately comfortably alongside feelings of gladness, provided I can know them and face them. The negative need not destroy the positive, but I do not have to pretend that the negative does not exist. The fear of death is then partly about what we feel about the lives we have lived. Rage, sadness, or loss that cannot or has not been faced can lead to our wanting to cling onto the very end. To face life as it is and has been is a major and continuing task.
Then there are also other fears. Perhaps we cannot face death if we have never been confronted by the questions of our existence and have never become aware of who we really are. We perhaps need to know ourselves before we can be ready to let go of it all.
There is also the fear of meaninglessness. "What is the point of it all?" people ask. It is as if we look around to life outside us to find some reason for our lives. Many people turn to religion to supply this need, and that is fine. But we can find life deeply meaningful without religion too. For me it is enough just to have existed, to have experienced being and relationship. Some experiences have an eternal quality about.them, such as talking closely to friends, being held in another’s arms, seeing a beautiful sunset, or listen to some music that touches the heart, for example. We might say at that moment "It was worth it all just for this". It is perhaps when our sense of the good seems most threatened by our rage or sadness that we feel we want to find some meaning to life; a meaning outside us that makes sense of our existence. For example, "we are here to help others".
Well, no! I do not think so. We are here to grow into our true selves and to experience that being in relationships with others and in relation to the world in which we live. And if there is a place in our hearts for other people, then surely that is beneficial both for ourselves and for the other.
There is also a longing in some people for the sort of immortality that is gained through having built a building, written a book, or made some vital contribution. But for most of us, again, this will not sof 59 May 2003 be so. We may be remembered by a few in their hearts, and that is a privilege—especially if that remembering is a glad one. But we do not have to be immortal. It is enough just to have come into being, and to have existed.
I am conscious of one other source of fear, and that is the primitive animal instinct to fight for and cling onto life.
A drowning person will fight to gain the surface and find air. This is a deep and powerful instinct, and again cannot be ignored. But perhaps it is possible to be conscious of this drive and not to be its slave; that is to acknowledge the existence of this drive without becoming its captive.
Well, am I kidding myself? When I come to it, will I cling on like mad, afraid to let go? Will I be terrified of the impending end? I hope not. Yet I suppose none of us know. But at least thinking about it is a start. And with the help of friends and family perhaps it could be possible to face this last great adventure without too much terror?
Alan Naylor-Smith was a C of E priest for twenty-five years, then a psychotherapist for thirteen. His wife died of Multiple Sclerosis in 1999. He was diagnosed as having Parkinson's disease in 1998. He now counts himself a humanist who respects and seeks spiritual values. He is the convener of the Hertfordshire SoF Group, and describes himself as being in pretty good heart.