Chapter-3
DENIAL OF DEATH
Yaksha asks King Yudhistira, “What is the most amazing thing in the world?” Yudhistira replied, “Everyday we hear of people dying. Sometimes these people are known to us. Sometimes we go and attend their funerals. But we have this unshakable belief that death is not going to happen to us. This is the most amazing thing I have observed in my life.”
-Mahabharata, Hindu epic – 800 B.C?
“It is not a question of the appendix, not a question of the kidney, but of life and death. Yes, life has been and now it is going away, and I cannot stop it. Why deceive myself? Isn’t obvious to everyone except me, that I am dying and it’s question of weeks, of days – at once perhaps. There was light, and now there is darkness. I was here, and now I am going. Where…. Death, yes, death. And they – all of them – don’t understand, and don’t want to understand, and feel no pity…. They do not care, but they will die too. Fools! Me sooner than later, but it will be same for them. And they are merry. The beasts!”
– Leo Tolstoy – “the Death of Ivanllych” 1882
The cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker Published his Pulitzer Prize – winning book Denial of Death in 1973, three years before his death. While the book received considerable attention at that time, his work never received the amount of consideration and follow-up research it deserved. Its truth – like his chosen subject – having fallen victim to denial, says Dr. Michael Murphy, the author of The Wisdom of Dying. According to Becker, denial of death is a way in which most cultures deal with the anxiety of death. It’s an unnerving story to most of us, who move through our lives acting as though we are immortal.
Medicine and the Denial of Death
“The living enters through the front door of the hospital while the dead are discreetly rushed down to the basement and out through the back door. Whenever death is thwarted – the exploits of the physician and the hospital are proudly reported by the T.Vs and newspapers. Physicians and nurses are trained to see death as a defeat and failure of their skills. In this high-tech biomedical era, when tantalizing possibility of miraculous new cures is daily dangled before our eyes, the temptation to see therapeutic hope is great, even in those situations when commonsense would demand otherwise. To hold out this kind of hope is too frequently a deception, which in the long run far more often to be disservice than the promised victory it seems at first”, writes Dr. Nuland in “How we die” (1993).
The word cancer is synonymous with death to most people. The whole approach in medicine toward cancer is belligerent. We have declared war on cancer. We will fight it and beat it. Cancer specialists are our fighters. They never give up. They have endless supply of toxic drugs (chemos) to fight cancer. The patient is urged to fight and never give up. When traditional medicine does not work, patients seek alternate, unproven medicines in desperation. Same is true of many others terminal diseases doctors do not want to give up. Most patients and families do not want to give up. It is a form of denial of the inevitability of death.
The Funeral Home and the Denial of Death
In previous centuries, and even now in poorer countries, life expectancy was much shorter. Infant mortality and child birth mortality was high. Plague and pestilence were everywhere. Most people died in their homes. The waking ceremony (death watch) was left in the hands of the family and friends. Going through the each step was important in the ritual of remembering and settings go. Washing, preparing the body, viewing it in the home, telling stories, weeping, laughing – all were part of saying good-bye.
In our modern-day death rituals, especially in Western Countries, the funeral home personnel take the dead body from the hospital or nursing home in a sanitized black plastic bag to the funeral home. The body is prepared. It is laid out in an expensive casket for viewing. Family members are not involved in the process except for setting know of their preferences and paying the bills. According to Dr. Michel Murphy, the author of “The Wisdom of Dying (1999) – “sanitizing death the funeral home removes it from everyday life, dampen and deadens mourning, and allow us to get on with our lives as rapidly as possible immersed once again in our denial.”
The Family and the Denial of Death
Just as the knowledge of impending death looms over the individual who spends great deal of energy in its denial, so also the family. A family may experience the death of its elders as the first assault on its safety, and togetherness. Later, as children scatter and parents age, many adult children begin to fear the deaths of their parents. When an elder family member is sick and likely to die soon, many times younger family members try to hide the seriousness of the illness from the elderly person. This kind of hiding or a form of lying is more common when the illness involves cancer. Parents and many times the doctors and nurses, lie to terminals ill children. Many cancers are deadly and some are curable. Family members tend to believe that their love one is special and will beat the odds. Of course, to be hopeful is human.
Denial of Death
Denial of death runs rampan through our culture. We are woefully unprepared when it is our time to die, or our time to help others die. We are not often available for those who need us, paralyzed as we are by anxiety and resistance – nor are we available for ourselves. But the denial has to give way to acceptance – sometimes in the future, sooner the better, says Becker. Of course we don’t want to die. But there is only one certainty in life, and that is sooner or later it will end. No matter how good a person you are, no matter how healthfully you eat and exercise, you will not live forever. Despite the best that modern medicine can offer, there is no cure for mortality, at least not yet.
Sources
- Becker, Ernest, “The Denial of Death”, New York: The Free Press, 1973
- Murphy, N. Michel, M.D. “The Wisdom of Dying, Practices for Living”. Boston, MA: Element, 1999
- Nuland, Sherwin, B. “How We Die, Reflect ions on Life’s Final Chapter”. New York: Alfred A. Knopt 1993.