death-and-dying

Sullivan had her Crucifix Soldier and now I have mine. No. I am the soldier. Teacup is the cross.

It's not that people don't know when they'll die. It's that they don't seem to know they'll die.

Like I said, Kenzie. Everything ends. I__ not afraid to die,_ you say with a wan smile. __ just hope I__ smart enough to stay dead.

Death is the great incorruptible corruptor

And what after all, is death?? 'Tis but a cessation from mortal life; 'tis but the finishing of an appointed course; the refreshing inn after a fatiguing journey; the end of a life of cares and troubles; and, if happy, the beginning of a life of immortal happiness.

The world of the terminally ill is the world of neither the living nor the dead.

Is this what it's like? he wondered. When you're about to die? One hand stretched back to someone who cares for you, the other reaching for a place you can't see.

After all, Malthus was wrong. Marx was wrong. Democracy did not die during the Great Depression as the Communists predicted. And Khrushchev did not 'bury' us. We buried him. Neville Chute's On the Beach proved as fanciful as Dr. Strangelove and Seven Days in May. Paul Ehrlich's Population Bomb never exploded. It fizzled. The Clash of 79 produced Ronald Reagan and an era of good feelings. The Club of Rome notwithstanding, we did not run out of oil. The world did not_end at the close of the second millennium, as some prophesied and others hoped. Who predicted the disappearance of the Soviet Empire? Is it not possible that today's most populous nations -China, India, and Indonesia- could break into pieces as well? Why do predictions of the Death of the West not belong on the same shelf as the predictions of 'nuclear winter' and 'global warming'? Answer: the Death of the West is not a prediction of what is going to happen, it is a depiction of what is happening now. First World nations are dying.

They were obviously headstones of graves, though the graves themselves no longer existed as either mounds or depressions; the years had leveled all. Scattered here and there, more massive blocks showed where some pompous or ambitious monument had once flung its feeble defiance at oblivion.

You know-portraits are odd things." "How do you figure?" I asked. "Well at the time, that portrait told the whole story. It told the truth. We were a family-a happy family. Now that same portrait just looks like a lie.

Couples swayed and embraced to the beat as the singer's vocals soared above a group of confused teenagers and twenty-something's.

Verily, there is no dishonor in death at the hands of a far superior enemy.

The casket was lined with lovely velvet, which must have felt lovely even to the dead, but the glowing man continued to rip up the casket.

They say you fly when you die.Basically, when you die, your spirit leaves your body. Actually, at first you can see all your life, like, reflected in a magic mirror. Then you start floating like a ghost. You can see anything happening around you, you can hear everything, but you can__ communicate with the world of the living.Then you see these lights, all these different lights, of all different colors. These lights are the doors that pull you into other planes of existence, but most people actually like this world so much that they don__ want to be taken away_ So the whole thing turns into a bad trip and the only way out is to get reincarnated.It__ funny you know, DMT only lasts for six minutes but it really seems like eternity. It__ the same chemical that your brain receives when you die. It__ a little bit like, dying would be the ultimate trip.

A girl about her own age reached out and took hold of her hand. The girl was tall and thin. She had long black hair streaked with red, and the whites of her green eyes stood out against the black coal dust that covered her face. Her blue and white dress hung in tatters, and was blackened by coal dust and smeared with blood. The girl smiled and Rosie could see that in her other hand she was holding her red umbrella.

Seventy years of life is nothing in front of a single day of death

To be present at the time of death can be one of the most important moments in life. To see those last, awesome minutes of transition from life into death can only be described as a spiritual experience. And then afterwards, when the body lies still, one gets the strange feeling that the person has simply gone away, as though he has said, ____ just going into the other room. I__l leave that thing there while I__ gone; I won__ be needing it._ It__ a very odd experience _ the body is there, but the person has gone. No one would say, __ am a body_; we say, __ have a body_. So what, therefore, is the ___? The ___ or perhaps __e_ has just stepped into the other room. It is a strange feeling, and I can__ describe it in any other way. Another thing that is strange is that the body left behind looks smaller, quite a lot smaller, than the living person. The face looks the same, but calm and relaxed, wrinkles and worry lines are smoothed, and a feeling of serenity pervades the entire room. But the person, the ___, has gone. It also greatly helps the process of mourning to see the body after death, and preferably to assist in the laying out. Nurses used to do the job when I was young girl, and we always asked the relatives if they wanted to help. Nurses don__ do it any more, but anyone can ask.

Handling a dead body is not a repugnant or frightening experience and, somehow, it helps to accept the fact that the soul of that person has gone if you treat the body with reverence and respect before it is finally disposed of by cremation or burial.