Blog Post 5: Dealing with Death PT 1

No one would argue that death is not an adversity both for the person experiencing it as well as family, friends and colleagues who are affected by it. I have lost a number of friends and colleagues over the past few years, most recently my friend David, a childhood friend who I have had a close connection with for most of my life. Luckily I and another close friend of ours, Bill, were able to spend some time with Dave before his death. This required my traveling back to my hometown in East Tennessee. I had been fully vaccinated for a while but traveling was and still is stressful in these times. Going back to my hometown was also an experience which I will write more about in a later post. I will focus on death and dying in the next few posts and how it relates to the issue of resilience. I need to write about it for my own mental health. I hope what I have to say will be helpful to others.

Dave's death was not sudden. He had been struggling with bone cancer for a number of years. Over the years he demonstrated his resilience and had recovered from other bouts of the disease. But this time he knew that he would not win the struggle. He was accepting of this and encouraged others to do the same. Dvave was connected to a lot of people and he continued that connection until the very end. He liked to talk and tell stories and this is the way he often communicated. I had collected some of them and had integrated them into a manuscript I was finishing a project I had been working on for some time. As the end approached I worked on completing the manuscript enough that I was able to go over it with him and our other close friend Bill before his death. We had a good time laughing about and reminiscing about the things that David had done and the stories he had told not all of which were completely true. The humor and laughter was cathartic for all three of us.

Bill and I attempted to provide support for both Dave and his family and I'm sure through doing this our resilience was increased. We managed to put aside some of our differences specifically in politics.

Dave was not a great planner and he left some important issues such as his will to the last minute but true to form he managed to get the will and a number of other things taken care of a few days before his death. Bill and I joked with him encouraging him to take care of these things earlier the next time.

His family turned to their Christian faith for support and for understanding and meaning. Over the last few years Dave's siblings had had some disputes with each other but Dave's death seemed to bring the family back together. His sister and brothers were able to put away their differences and to support each other during this difficult time. Dave's wife was there by his side until the end.

The issue of death often brings up very strong feelings for everyone and causes some people to avoid talking about it and denying that it is going to be inevitable for all of us and for all of us we care for. Dave encouraged those around him to accept that he was going to die and not to engage in denial or wishful thinking. Dave died peacefully in his sleep on the morning of Palm Sunday.

Since his death, Bill and I have checked in by phone with his wife and will continue to lend whatever support we can. Bill and I seem to have gotten closer through this process and agreed that we would talk at least once a month. I saw Dave's family and his friends again when a memorial service for him was held at the end of the summer.

The next few months were not easy ones. I caught myself thinking about things that I would tell Dave when I talked with him and then realized I will not be talking with him at least not in this life.

In the next post I will talk more about death and how we can use the skills and attitudes of resilience to find purpose and meaning and strengthen our own resilience.

Ron Breazeale, Ph.D.