On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families

Fear can’t stop death, but it can stop you from living a full life—remember to live in the moment and push fear aside as much as you can. Play is as important for adults as it is for children; take time to add play and joy to your life.

“Unfinished business is the biggest problem in life. . . . the more lessons we learn the more business we finish, and the more fully we live, really live life.” (Life Lessons, p. xvi)

“We cannot help the terminally ill patient in a really meaningful way if we do not include his family.” (On Death and Dying)

“The question should not be stated, ‘Do I tell my patient [or loved one]?’ but should be rephrased as, ‘How do I share this knowledge with my patient [or loved one]?’” (On Death and Dying)

“I believe that we should make it a habit to think about death and dying occasionally, I hope before we encounter it in our own life. . . . It may be a blessing, therefore, to use the time of illness to think about death and dying in terms of ourselves.” (On Death and Dying

This may also be a contributing factor why so many patients and their family members, like Mrs. G. (Chapter VII), get some pleasure in visiting other perhaps more seriously ill patients. Sister I. used these visits as an expression of hostility, namely, to elicit patients’ needs and to prove to the nursing staff that they were not efficient

A student wrote in a paper that the most amazing aspect of this seminar was perhaps that we talked so little about death itself.

Maybe instead of cryo-societies we should develop societies for dealing with the questions of death and dying, to encourage a dialogue on this topic and help people to live less fearfully until they die.

We acknowledge our appreciation for their sharing with us their thoughts about this taboo topic, we tell them that their role is to teach us, to help those who follow them later on, thus creating an idea that something will live perhaps after their death, an idea, a seminar in which their suggestions, their fantasies, their thoughts continue to liv