Reflections on the End of Life

1
Reflections on the End of Life

• And on those who keep company with the dying

2

• We understand death for the first time when he
  puts his hand upon one whom we love.
• Madame de Stael
• Swiss Author
• d. 1817

3
To fear death is nothing other than to
think oneself wise when one is not.

• For it is to think one knows what one does not
  know.
• Socrates
• d. 399 B.C.E.

4

• Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears
  great calamities with cheerfulness, not through
  insensibility but through greatness of
  mind.      
• Aristotle
• d. 322 B.C.E.

5

• The pain of the mind is worse than the pain of
  the body.
• Publilius Syrus
• 1st Century BCE

6

• It is easier to find men who will volunteer to
  die, than to find those who are willing to endure
  pain with patience.
• Julius Caesar
• d. 100 BCE

7

• Suicide would be my way of telling God that I
  quit.
• Tom Kleffman
• Contemporary American Artist

8
Knowledge by suffering entereth,  And life is
perfected by Death.       Elizabeth
Barrett Browning A Vision of Poets--Conclusion
d. 1861
9
Sickness is a belief, to be annihilated by the
divine Mind.       Mary Baker Glover
Eddy Founder of the Church of Christ,
Scientist d. 1910
10
Disease generally begins that equality which
death completes the distinctions which set one
man so much above another are very little
perceived in the gloom of a sick-chamber.
Samuel Johnson (Dr. Johnson) d. 1784
11

• All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more
  painful death than animals that know nothing.
• Maurice Maeterlinck
• Belgian Nobel Laureate in Literature
• d. 1949

12
Don't look forward to the day when you stop
suffering, because  when it comes you'll know
that you're dead. Tennessee
Williams  American Author d. 1983   
13

• I do not believe that any man fears to be dead,
• but only the stroke of death.
• Francis Bacon
• d. 1626

14

• Life is pleasant.
• Death is peaceful.
• It's the transition that's troublesome.  
• Isaac Asimov Russian- born
  American Biochemist d. 1992

15
So long as little children are allowed to suffer,
there is no true love in this world. Isadora
Duncan American Dancer d. 1927
16

• Do not seek death.
• Death will find you.
• But seek the road which makes death a
  fulfillment.
• Dag Hammerskjöld
• Secretary General, U.N.
• d. 1961

17

• Nothing you can lose by dying is half as precious
  as the readiness to die, which is man's charter
  of nobility.
• George Santayana
• Spanish Writer and Philosopher
• d. 1952

18
Of all the know-nothing persons in this world,
commend us to the man who has "never known a
day's illness." He is a moral dunce, one who has
lost the greatest lesson in life who has skipped
the finest lecture in that great school of
humanity, the sick-chamber.       Thomas
Hood British Humorist d. 1845
19

• I am going to seek the great Perhaps.
• François Rabelais
• French Renaissance writer
• on his deathbed, c. 1553

20
If there is a meaning in life at all, then there
must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an
ineradicable part of life, even as fate and
death. Without suffering and death, human life
cannot be complete.      Viktor
Emil Frankl         Austrian
Psychotherapist Holocaust Survivor d.
1997
21
The concept of uncontrollable pain is
self-fulfilling.

• Pain only becomes unmanageable when the
  clinicians involved give up. Although I realize
  that the world in which we live is real, and
  therefore imperfect, as a physician I consciously
  adopt the attitude that there is no such thing as
  uncontrollable pain, only pain that has yet to be
  controlled.
• Ira Byock, M.D.
• Past President (1997) of the American
  Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine

22

• Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing
  the horizon as the end of the ocean.
• David Searls
• Contemporary American Genome Scientist

23

• Watching a peaceful death of a human being
  reminds us of a falling star one of a million
  lights in a vast sky that flares up for a brief
  moment only to disappear into the endless night
  forever.
• Elisabeth Kübler Ross
• Author of On Death and Dying
• d. 2004

24

• As men, we are all equal in the presence of
  death.
• Publilius Syrus
• 1st century BCE

25

• Tears are sometimes an inappropriate response to
  death. When a life has been lived completely
  honestly, completely successfully, or just
  completely, the correct response to death's
  perfect punctuation mark is a smile.
• Julie Burchill
• Contemporary British author

26
...when we finally know we are dying, and all
other sentient beings are dying with us, we start
to have a burning, almost
heartbreaking sense of the fragility and
preciousness of each moment and each being, and
from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless
compassion for all beings. Sogyal
Rinpoche Author, The Tibetan Book of Living
and Dying
 
 
27
The deep meaning of the cross of Christ is that
there is no suffering on earth that is not borne
by God. Dietrich Bonhoeffer German
Lutheran Pastor Executed by Nazis in 1945
28

• When you were born, you cried and the world
  rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die,
  the world will cry and you will rejoice.
• Indian Proverb

29

• The day which we fear as our last is but the
  birthday of eternity.
• Lucius Annaeus Seneca
• Roman Stoic Philosopher
• d. 65 C.E.

30
It is in sickness that we most feel the need of
that sympathy which shows how much we are
dependent one upon another for our comfort, and
even necessities. Thus disease, opening our eyes
to the realities of life, is an indirect
blessing.       Hosea Ballou
American, Universalist Pastor d. 1852
31
The most beautiful people we have known are those
who have known defeat,

• known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and
  have found their way out of the depths. These
  persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and
  an understanding of life that fills them with
  compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving
  concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.
• Elisabeth Kübler Ross

32

• Christianity has always insisted that the cross
  we bear always precedes the crown we wear.
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• d. 1968

33
I've never heard anyone say the really deep
lessons of life have come in times of ease and
comfort. But, I have heard many saints say every
significant advance I've ever made in grasping
the depth of God's love and growing deep with
Him, have come through suffering. John
Piper Senior Pastor, Bethlehem Baptist
Churchh, Minneapolis, MN
34
Not a day passes over the earth but men and
women of no note do great deeds, speak great
words, and suffer noble sorrows. Charles
Reade English Novelist and Dramatist d.
1884
35

• For what is it to die, But to stand in the sun
  and melt into the wind?
• Kahlil Gibran
• Lebanese Poet
• d. 1931

36

• Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an
  empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers,
  and things are not what they seem. Life is real!
  Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal
  Dust thou art to dust returnest, Was not spoken
  of the soul.
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• American Poet
• d. 1882

37

• The call of death is a call of love. Death can be
  sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we
  accept it as one of the great eternal forms of
  life and transformation.
• Hermann Hesse
• German Noble Laureate in Literature
• d. 1962

38

• A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs
  to sleep, and there comes a time when it is
  wrong, as well as useless, to resist.
• Stewart Alsop
• American Political Analyst
• d. 1974

39

• The capacity to give one's attention to a
  sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing it
  is almost a miracle it is a miracle.
• Simone Weil
• French Philosopher
• d. 1943

40

• No one's death comes to pass without making some
  impression, and those close to the deceased
  inherit part of the liberated soul and become
  richer in their humanness.
• Hermann Broch
• Austrian writer
• d. 1951

41
Dying grace is not usually given until it is
needed. Death to the disciple of Jesus is only
stepping from one room to another and far better
room of Our Father's house. Elizabeth
Payson Prentiss American Author of
Childrens Books d. 1878
42

• It is highly significant, and indeed almost a
  rule, that moral courage has its source in
  identificationthrough one's own sensitivitywith
  the suffering of one's fellow human beings.
• Rollo May
• American Existentialist
• d. 1994

43

• I say to people who care for people who are
  dying, if you really love that person and want to
  help them, be with them when their end comes
  close. Sit with them - you don't even have to
  talk. You don't have to do anything but really be
  there with them.
• Elisabeth Kübler Ross

44

• Lord, now lettest thy servant depart in peace,
  according to thy word.
• Luke 229

45

• The Catholic health care ministry faces the
  reality of death with the confidence of faith. In
  the face of deathfor many, a time when hope
  seems lostthe Church witnesses to her belief
  that God has created each person for eternal
  life.
• Ethical and Religious Directives
• Introduction to Part V

46
Not till I was shut up to prayer and to the study
of God's word by the loss of earthly
joys--sickness destroying the flavor of them
all--did I begin to penetrate the mystery that is
learned under the cross. And wondrous as it is,
how simple is that mystery! To love Christ, and
to know that I love Him--this is
all. Elizabeth Payson Prentiss
American Author of Childrens Books d.
1878
47
The cross of Christ is the pledge to us that the
deepest suffering may be the condition of the
highest blessing the sign, not of God's
displeasure, but of His widest and most
compassionate face.      - Dean Arthur
Penrhyn Stanley English Churchman d.
1881
48

• In this world you will have tribulation, but be
  of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.
• Jesus Christ
• John 1633

49

• AMEN