I grew up in New England. At this time of year, I feel a deep sense of loss and appreciation as I witness the beauty of the leaves preparing to let go and die.
Have you ever thought about what dying feels like? Probably not. Most of us avoid the topic. Most of us agree that our death is inevitable, yet most fear it, deny it, and push it to the edges of our attention. What’s up with that?
Part of the answer lies in what we absorb from an early age: Young is good, Old is bad. Living is good, dying is bad. Although people have varying personal beliefs, the above messages repeat for our entire lives, leaving little room for curiosity about the end.
Today’s longevity movement focuses on adding years to life. That is not a bad thing. But it is also important to add life to years.
There is a saying, commonly described as an African proverb (precise origin unknown), that states, “When death finds me, let it find me alive.” That is a concise tenet of conscious aging: living with intention so we are present for each chapter, including the last. Extra decades lived in avoidance, distraction or regret are not much of a gift. Quantity without quality, without meaning, is just duration.
Our fear is fed by how dying is portrayed. Mainstream media shows death as painful, sudden, or agonizing: a twisted body, a person gasping, a life ending in panic. Tragic. We imagine ourselves trapped in a failing body and drowning in a sea of regrets. Because we rarely talk about dying in real life, these images fill the silence.
Reality, however, is most often the opposite. Dr. Christopher Kerr (Death Is But a Dream, 2020), a hospice physician, neurobiologist and researcher, has spent over 30 years listening to dying patients. His work shows that, for most of us, dying is not chaos and terror but something much quieter. Most patients describe comforting interactions with loved ones who have already died, reconciliations, and longtime cherished memories. Rather than drowning in regret, most seem to be reviewing their lives and finding connection. For most of us, the process resembles a gradual, peaceful dimming of the light.
This doesn’t mean every death is easy, and it would be dishonest to claim otherwise. Fear, pain, grief, and unfinished business are real. But Dr. Kerr’s research invites us to replace dread with curiosity and even appreciation.
Perhaps we can learn something from the Japanese idea of wabi-sabi, appreciating the beauty of impermanence. A weathered wooden door or a maple leaf turning red in autumn are beautiful. Wabi-sabi suggests that impermanence is not a flaw in life but part of what makes life precious. Seen this way, aging and dying are not failures to be hidden, but the natural, inevitable unfolding of something beautiful.
What matters most at the end of life is usually love, relationships, and a sense of meaning. Let’s tend to those things now, while we still can. Call the person we’ve been putting off and say what we’ve left unsaid. Tell our families today, plainly, how we want to be cared for when that time comes, even though it’s an uncomfortable talk. Make peace with our own mortality instead of running from it. We may find that dying has more to teach us about how to live than we’ve ever given it credit for.
Thinking about what dying feels like is not morbid. It is a way of waking up.
When death finds us, may it find us alive.
