> But nobody wants to die right now, ever. No matter what they said before or what papers they signed.
Plenty of people recognize when it's time. When my mom was diagnosed with glioblastoma, her surgeon said, "This is what you will die from." That's hard to hear, but people can definitely take it on board. To realize that it's not a choice of whether, just how. Take, Brittany Maynard, who had the same thing my mom did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittany_Maynard
I can go as far as agreeing that American culture has a lot of collective anxiety about death, and a consequent refusal to deal with is calmly. But there are plenty of other approaches to that. Like the European movement known as Death Cafe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Cafe
Many things in our lives can be scary. But we can shape our relationships to them. And given that death comes to all of us, I think it's worth taking the time to get on good terms with it.
All of the replies to my original comment have veered off from what I tried to express with the phrase "right now".
I was alluding to a situation with rapid terminal cancer much later than diagnosis, but earlier than morphine + the end of communication. The fentanyl or oxycontin stage, as I recall it.
I think most likely if you are ever so slightly insulated from such a situation, you might not realize it.
Having a parent die of cancer when you are ~7 may not prepare you for having a parent die of cancer when you are ~37. That is how I see it now.
> But nobody wants to die right now, ever. No matter what they said before or what papers they signed.
Plenty of people recognize when it's time. When my mom was diagnosed with glioblastoma, her surgeon said, "This is what you will die from." That's hard to hear, but people can definitely take it on board. To realize that it's not a choice of whether, just how. Take, Brittany Maynard, who had the same thing my mom did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittany_Maynard
I can go as far as agreeing that American culture has a lot of collective anxiety about death, and a consequent refusal to deal with is calmly. But there are plenty of other approaches to that. Like the European movement known as Death Cafe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Cafe
Or the (sadly now defunct) Zen Hospice here in SF: https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-of-zen-hospice-projec...
Many things in our lives can be scary. But we can shape our relationships to them. And given that death comes to all of us, I think it's worth taking the time to get on good terms with it.