How can we break the silence about what happens when we’re dying?

There really is no explanation nor prescription for loving, for being with and available to those you love until the last breath and then on. And there is no one way to provide the best possible care for your loved one or for yourself and others who are the caregivers.

The death of a friend is a loss that most people face at some point in their lives – often many times. But it is a grief that may not be taken seriously by employers, doctors or others.

A new review digs into existing research on the connection between grief and the immune system.

Many agree on the factors contributing to a good death. People want to be treated with dignity, have relief from pain and, as much as possible, to control what happens to them.

Euthanasia debates often focus on people experiencing unbearable physiological or psychological suffering. But research suggests “loss of autonomy” is the primary reason for requesting euthanasia, even among patients with terminal cancer.

What happens after death? Do deeply loving feelings exist when we are no longer in physical bodies?

We are all getting older every day. One day you and I will both be old, if it is our destiny to live that long. It is our choice whether we live in fear and act according to other people's expectations of what an older person is or whether we allow ourselves to be authentic and real. Start now; you are an elder in training...

Sometimes we wonder how we are going to survive the seemingly awful circumstances that appear in our lives. We may even wonder if we want to survive the nightmare at all. As much as my husband's dementia was our worst nightmare, I have grown to see that awful time in our lives as an awesome gift.

Healing can come after loss -- that I now know. And I also discovered that more than healing comes -- joy resurfaces, again. I feel an intimate connection with my beloved once again. And I know now, for sure, that time, place, dimension, and space do not have an effect on the presence of love...

At the moment of death, our soul rises out of its host body. If the soul is older and has experience from many former lives, it knows immediately it has been set free and is going home. These advanced souls need no one to greet them. However, most souls I work with are met by guides...

In our never-ending quest to understand what happens to us after we die, humans have long seen the rare phenomenon of near-death experiences as providing some hints.

Our experience of death obviously shapes the final moments of our own life. It also shapes the experience and remains in the memories of those around us. As an intensive care specialist for more than two decades, my colleagues and I do the best we can to provide high-quality end-of-life care.

Understanding the normal trajectory of grief matters for the person experiencing the grief and those treating them. Grief can seem desolate for those in the thick of it who often feel unable to imagine a way out of their suffering. But, as time passes, the pain usually dampens or becomes more fleeting.

Grief brought on by the loss of a spouse can cause inflammation that can lead to major depression, heart attack, and even premature death. For a new study, researchers examined the effect grief has on human health by conducting interviews with 99 people whose spouses had recently died. They also examined their blood.

New research illuminates how some men and boys who are contemplating suicide are finding emotional support in an unexpected place: Reddit. Responses to those posts often contained gendered language of their own, like, “Hey, bro, I’ve been through that before,” or, “What’s bothering you, man?” Sometimes referred to as the “front page of the internet,” Reddit is a social news aggregation and discussion website that’s especially popular among young adult males.

The awe-filled exclamation of Apple’s Steve Jobs — “Oh, wow! Oh, wow! Oh, wow!” — is an example of the intensified language we hear at the threshold and is true to the personality of the inspired innovator. Chaz Ebert, wife of celebrity critic Roger Ebert, shared a de­tailed account of her husband’s last words, in Esquire in 2013.

Tahlequah made headlines around the world as she carried the body of her dead calf at the surface of the water, sometimes on her head, sometimes in her mouth, for at least 10 days, in a heartbreaking “tour of grief”, as one of the foremost experts on her pod and her family, Ken Balcomb of the Whale Research Foundation, called it.

People don’t die in the same way that they used to. In the past, a relative, friend, partner would pass away, and in time, all that would be left would be memories and a collection of photographs.

As anyone knows who’s cared for an elderly parent, it’s not easy. It’s an unquestionably sacred and transformative task, but it can also be extremely difficult. The demands placed on caregivers are huge.

I didn’t believe in reincarnation when I was a child, having been brought up in a household with a father who was a physicist, but I often had private usual episodes, such as out of body experiences and clairvoyant visions.

Dying is changing. It used to be quick and unexpected for most, due to infection or trauma. Now it comes to us, in general, when we are older – caused by chronic medical conditions such as heart, kidney or lung disease, diabetes or dementia.

In the three-month period following a spouse’s death, widows and widowers are more likely to exhibit risk factors linked to cardiovascular illness and death, according to a new study.

Predicting how long a patient will survive is critically important for them and their families to guide future planning, yet notoriously difficult for doctors to predict accurately. While many patients request this information, others do not wish to know, or are incapable of knowing due to...

It seems so obvious that no one should die alone that we never talk about it, but people do often die when they are alone.

A funeral sometimes results in introspection about our own mortality. Throughout that irksome journey, we discussed our feelings about life and death. We shared experiences, sorrowful personal losses and our mundane philosophies on death and dying, not expecting it to be any more than a normal reaction to the passing of a family member.

When someone dies at home, everyone in the family is affected. Looking after a relative who is at the end of their life can be enormously rewarding, but carers have many unmet information and support needs. This can take a toll on their physical and emotional health.

What do you want to happen to your remains after you die?For the past century, most Americans have accepted a limited set of options without question. And discussions of death and funeral plans have been taboo. That is changing.

November 2 is All Souls’ Day, when many Christians honor the dead. As much as we all know about the inevitability of death, we are often unable to deal with the loss of a loved one.

Death will always carry with it a certain mystical component. No one can truly know what happens when we die, however, deathbed visits and other metaphysical phenomena certainly do provide a confirming hint of what lies beyond this world.

During my near-death experience, it felt to me that all judgment, hatred, jealousy, and fear stem from people not realizing their true greatness. This goes against the natural flow of life-force energy...

In the aftermath of the June terrorist attack in Manchester, an unusual thing happened. Mancunians gathered in St Ann’s Square ended a minute’s silence to honour the dead with a spontaneous rendition of Don’t Look Back in Anger by the homegrown rock band Oasis.

Grief is like this. I was only half-listening to a song on the radio, yet a wave of sadness overcame me for the loss of my father. The song had nothing to do with my dad nor my mood, as I was content and even joyful before the song.

If it were your last days on earth, what would you do? Would it change how you live today? Maybe you would wake up earlier and be a bit more cheerful. You might even stay up later. You would definitely tell your family and friends how much you love them.

One of the ways people bring closure to their lives is through their final requests. The most common requests in the Final Words Proj­ect were humble ones related to visiting with friends and family members and enjoying certain small pleasures, like a last bottle of a favorite beer. Those who are dying often wait for...

The oldest surviving great work of literature tells the story of a Sumerian king, Gilgamesh, whose historical equivalent may have ruled the city of Uruk some time between 2800 and 2500 BC.

We are on our way to Chicago to meet a man who has found a way for the living and the dead to talk. He knows how to induce a state in which those who grieve can hear directly from the ones they have lost. I don’t fully believe, but it’s all I have.

Part of my job is to conduct the memorial whenever a death occurs. Although each service is tailored to the circumstances, I begin many of them with the same reading: “To everything there is a season...” It helps me to remember that our lives proceed according to a natural rhythm.

One day you will sit at the bedside of someone you love and have a final conversation. That conversation will invite you into a unique territory — the one that exists between living and dying. You may hear words expressing a desire for...

I should be grateful that I got an opportunity that so many don’t: to say “I love you,” before someone dies. I should feel lucky, right? I should feel endlessly lucky that that’s the last thing we ever said to each other.

Death isn’t bad luck, because there is no difference between the living and the dead. The one in the coffin is doing the same thing as the one grieving in the pew: loving and learning.

What if Joyce dies before me? This is one of my greatest vulnerabilities. Sure, I could die first. Statistically, women live longer than men. Even though we’re both healthy in the important ways, we are still seventy years old. We are now in our senior years. Death of our bodies is no longer something that can be ignored.

From ghosts to ghouls, witches to wizards, Halloween is the one time of the year when people come together to celebrate everything supernatural.

I quickly learned—at the age of four—that while the dead may be dead, they still have a lot to say, and it is my job to listen. As kids, we all learn to look both ways and never take candy from a stranger. I also learned to never argue with a dead person—they often know more than the living.

We cannot avoid emotional pain in life, and it’s through our experience of it that we come to under­stand what it means to be human. The whole of life is a series of beginnings and end­ings, a succession of mini-deaths, that we have to learn to take in our stride...

Ghosts are still to be found haunting old buildings, castles, domestic houses, prisons and just about any place of human habitation you can imagine. There are even many recorded stories of ghosts in the White House in Washington. The 16th US President Abe Lincoln has been seen by...

Some births happen with just a few easy pushes while others are a long, drawn out, Herculean task. The moment of death, too, is unique and can happen with gentle ease or struggle and effort. It deserves the same honor we reserve for the moment of birth whether it was a peaceful experience or a conflicted one.

In nursing homes, older people are increasingly frail and being admitted to care later than they used to be. More than half of residents suffer from depression, yet psychiatrists and psychologists aren’t easily accessible, and pastoral or spiritual care is only available in a subset of homes.

Janelle and I first ‘met’ in 2010 when a member of her family came to me for a reading. After this particular reading I overflowed with compassion, feeling the pain of those who believe they have lost their loved ones forever.

Old age is a time of many challenges. Retirement brings opportunities, but for many people it also results in loss of role and income. Loved ones may die, leading to the need to grieve and reconstruct life, sometimes without a partner of many years. In advanced old age, physical and mental frailty may lead to further loss of role and greater dependence on others.

In this excerpt from the beginning of her book, author Steffany Barton explains her perspective on suicide, one that she has come to since a dear friend of hers took his life. Steffany’s search for answers and understanding has been a long often painful but ultimately rewarding journey.

I have never liked hospitals but suddenly I began to appreciate the safety and stability it brought my family and I. Room 305 carried a special meaning for me, one of courage, hope, power and strength.

Too many people go through life afraid of death, either the event itself, or facing the prospect of the unknown. My interest and research into the areas of past lives, life after death and reincarnation has totally influenced my personal views of death, and indeed of life as well.

Loss is a wound that creates a sea change in the way we see and experience our lives. It can’t be healed in our emotional body by applying a poultice of science, religion, or any other measurement. Grief is as individual as our face or our fingerprints.

People who sense, feel, or see a light flash released from the body when a person dies are lucky, for it is an awesome thing. I have been privy to such scenes with animals as well.

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes, as Benjamin Franklin famously wrote. Few of us find taxes exciting, but death – even just thinking about it – affects us profoundly in many different ways. This is why researchers across so many different fields study it from their perspectives.

It was midnight, nearly a thousand midnights since Lucky had died, and all at once I felt his weight on my hospital bed. I had heard of it time and again, in accounts of dear animals once gone, come to touch us again. There was no body there just the belief of his weight, but I knew who it was.

You don't have to like your losses, but the path to healing is through acceptance — a learned skill that comes only from doing. The more you courageously face your losses and accept what is, the more you will heal and the happier you will be.

There’s an odd thing that happens to most near-death­-experiencers . . . they come back from dying and they’re no longer frightened of it. Maybe the definition of Death has changed for them. It has for me! It changed because there was nothing painful, waiting for me, I didn’t even realize I had died.

 Many years after my tragedies were over and done with, and after I was happy beyond my dreams, the idea came to me to make mosaic artwork. A mosaic artist can take bits and pieces of trash and treasure and create something beautiful.

When you return from death or near-death, a new commandment courses throughout your veins and in rhythm with your heartbeat . . . love one another. Experiencers of every stripe, tongue, culture, religion, and mindset find themselves beginning to behave in a manner as if life itself is all about love.

My grandma was dying. I was afraid. I was afraid of death. I was afraid to be with her when she died. I was afraid of all the grief I was going to feel. And I was afraid of everyone else's pain, too. I knew I could stay in California and let her die without me, but I couldn't do that...

In our youth-obsessed culture, the advancing specter of growing old becomes something to be tirelessly avoided. Our society's beliefs about growing old don't honor the eldership status of our seniors. What's usually overlooked is the tremendous storehouse of knowledge and wisdom that...

When faced with the death or serious illness of a loved one — whether a parent, son or daughter, spouse, or long-time friend — we are almost always shaken, often to the core. When the death is unexpected or sudden, our grief, anger, and confusion can be overwhelming...

There is much you can do to prepare yourself for the great adventure of death. But it is well to remember that you are alive, and as such, you are meant to live. Avoid the tendency to become preoccupied or obsessed with death. Keep death in perspective with other major life events.

I didn't ever remember hearing about Universal Laws, yet, strangely I understood what they were saying even as it came out of their mouths. These were the guides for the universe created especially for us and I had to know more. I knew this was the truth as I had never experienced it.

Modern society spends considerable effort on disinfecting the experience of dying. This inclination to hide and exclude death from everyday social activity is supported by the transfer of the place of death from home to the hospital.

At some point in our lives, we all may have to inhabit that peculiar bubble of time where we’re called upon to witness the passage of a life. It’s possibly the most difficult, but most essential, thing we have to do—showing up for an event we dread and knowing how to conduct ourselves through this unmistakably sacred time.

Merely filling out the form is not enough. The patient’s wishes can be truly honored only if the patient and family understand the options, have the opportunity to pose questions, and trust that their wishes will be followed. In other words, POST achieves its purpose only if it is based on open and trusting relationship...

Many physicists believe numerous universes exist right alongside ours, and parallel universes are lighter and vibrate faster. People preparing to physically die begin to shake off the anchors binding them to their earthly bodies. With this release, spiritual vibration begins to increase...

When I was three years old my brother was born. He had a heart condition, and after being in and out of hospital for the whole of his little life, he died when I was five. The time after he was gone was a long and empty period of terrible loneliness and the hollow aching of grief.

We so often get in the way of grief; we try to suppress, truncate, postpone, or ignore it. We are afraid of being overwhelmed, of becoming nonfunctional: "If I start crying, I'll never stop:" But grief is more powerful than our resistance. In grief, it is natural to feel...

We all deal with grief in our own way. Many turn to addictions like shopping, gambling, hoarding, alcohol, drugs, eating, and even bingo. Many people I know who had been smoke-free for years started smoking again when they lost a loved one. We try to find ways to dull the pain, but they are all just temporary fixes, if even that...

The day before Billy died, a bitterly cold January morning, I ventured into the raw air. I never ask God for favors, but that morning I looked up at the silvery sky, raised my arms, and imagined pushing Billy into the hands of the great Divine. “Take care of him for me,” I whispered. Hours later, Billy was dead.

What do I think happens after we die? I think about this question every day as an exercise of the imagination, and I frequently change my mind about it. Death is something that many people try to avoid thinking about, but I haven’t been able to stop wondering about it since I was a child...

Departing visions occur every day, all around the world, and modern-day researchers are beginning to take such reports more seriously. One area of the departing vision experience in need of more research involves the dreamtime encounter...

Sometimes there are circumstances that we aren’t meant to change or heal. Sometimes it is time for a soul to move on in its journey. Life is like that. We have, throughout our lives, windows of opportunity through which we can transition right on out of our earthly lives. Dying is part of living, and it is...

Death is often the elephant in the room that everyone pretends isn’t there. This must change, because what ends up happening is that the person who’s dying feels very alone in this important time of their life, unable to communicate to their loved ones about what they’re...

If you’ve had a quick peek at the next dimension or been visited by your deceased loved ones you might be asking, “How do I integrate these afterlife encounters into my daily living?” Such experiences can rock us to our core, challenging everything we...

We need no external demonstration to prove to us that those that have gone before are still alive; we now know that no soul can possibly cease to exist, and we spiritually discern the immortal existence of...

When I do presentations, I ask if anyone has been present at the moment of someone’s death; those who have, I ask what they experienced. Nobody felt they could put into words their emotions. Many spoke about a sense of...

Several years ago my beloved husband of 40 years came very close to death. Yes, we are very grateful that he survived. Also I am very grateful for the inner changes that have occurred in me as a result. This experience has changed my life...

Now that the weather had started to warm, I began thinking I should do something with Billy's remains. His ashes had been sitting in a rosewood box by my fireplace for almost three months. When Billy was alive, he always said he wanted to be cremated and scattered in the sea. I suddenly had the impulse to...

by Margaret Coberly. One important and obvious realization that can come to light when thinking about death is that death is inevitable. Through the process of further reflection, a greater awareness of death occurs and eventually a calm presence in the face of death can be developed.

The best information I've ever heard on the topic of grieving and what happens when we don't do it comes from a retired cop turned public speaker and therapist for police officers, Bobby Smith, PhD. Bobby knows more about grief than per­haps...

True value is not on what you own, but on who you are. Dying people know this. Their belongings are of no consequence whatsoever at the end. What other people think of them, or what they have achieved in belongings, does not even enter their thinking at such a time. In the end...

Mortality nudges into our awareness at different points in our lives. Sometimes it strikes like a fist, and at other times it brushes alongside with the merest touch. It tapped me on the shoulder several years ago, about the time my wife and I were trying to have children.

I’ve worked with many people whose beloved family members have died and left them with inheritance clutter. This can be anything the relative once owned. I call it clutter because my clients often don’t...

One afternoon I received a somewhat desperate call... My friend called to see if there was anything that I could do to assist her dad. She felt as if her dad was going to die. She knew from our conversations that sometimes healing work isn’t about fixing a problem but can also be...

While time is required, the mere passage of hours is not enough to resolve a grief. It is also important to make time our ally, working with it rather than against it as it carries us toward new cycles of life. How can we cooperate with time, the great healer, and let it perform its task?

For me, ever since my sister's death in 1987, not only have I grown closer to her, I've also come to see that every decision, risk, adventure, accomplishment, deed, job, presentation, award, relationship, and experience — basically everything in my life — has been impacted and inspired by my relationship with my sister and her heavenly guidance.

There’s something to giving the end-of-life process its due, as opposed to our historical attitude of pretending to ignore death or treating it as though it were a distant taboo — at least, when it comes to having a family discussion about the matter. Here’s the issue...

Parents are often at a loss at how to explain the death of a loved one to a child. Some of the common explanations may create more harm than not...

Before my near-death experience, I thought there was no afterlife and, consequently, no continuation of consciousness. In my view, death was total, complete, and utterly final. Much to my surprise and joy, after my near-death experience the notion of...

My mother died three years ago, and her death and dying process has changed my life. I’ve never been afraid of death itself. Rather, I’ve been afraid of the process it takes to get there. My mother’s dying process played out my worst nightmare. She...

A common rite of passage at midlife is the declining health, or death, of our parents. Those who brought us into the world are usually the ones to leave it first. They welcomed us when we got here; now we'll wish them farewell as they move on...

Since that day in the elevator over 35 years ago when my mom first spoke of my destiny, the purpose of my journey began to come into focus. The message of "Living in the Moment" was given greater depth when shortly before the writing of this book was completed; my own journey brought me to a fork in the road.

Jenny was eager to talk to me about her five-year-old nephew, who she was beginning to believe was the reincarnation of her grandfather. She hadn't known that it was possible for a child to be the reincarnation of a family member. Now Dylan's strange behaviors were beginning to make sense to her.

Could any of us watching Peter Pan struggling with his shadow -- to find his shadow, to keep his shadow and, ultimately, to "bind" his shadow to him -- have known that the shadow carries powerful psychological implications? We might have noticed that Peter seemed different once his shadow was firmly attached. He was still delightful and charming but slightly subdued and not quite so self-centered and irresponsible. A bit more... dare we say, grown up? As Peter Pan could tell us, the shadow is...

Learning to live with the death of a person or persons I love is teaching me more about myself and about living. I am more complex than I realized, and yet I'm honest about my weaknesses. I am in the process of learning that weakness is strength, not a flaw.