Today's topic, Death.  I have been thinking about death this month. There are so many thoughts and ideas swirling through my head right now. I don't know if I can capture everything and express it in any meaningful way.   But, I am going to try.

 A few of people I know are facing death right now.   Because a couple of them are patients of mine I cannot speak in any detail about their experiences. Just know that they are young, but old enough to know what death is.  My Grandfather, who I am named for, is also staring death in the face. A friend just asked me what Mormons believe happens when we die.  Lastly, my sister died a couple of years ago around this time.  All these things combined have really got this morbid topic upper most in my mind.   

Where to begin?  First my thoughts about death.  My religious beliefs have really shaped how I see death.  I have always believed that we existed as spirits before we came to earth.  We were created by our Father in Heaven.  We come to earth to gain a body and to be tested, or if you prefer to learn.  When our time here is done, our spirits and bodies are separated.  Our body buried and our spirits return to Heaven, where depending on our choices we are sent to either spirit prison or paradise.  Once the Savior, Jesus Christ, comes back to earth, the resurrection will begin.  Everyone, regardless of belief in God, good or bad behavior will be resurrected.  After we have been resurrected, meaning our bodies and spirits are reunited in a perfected body, we will be judged according to our actions, our faithfulness and then sent to a degree of glory depending on how worthy or unworthy we have been. Trust that this is a quick, incomplete nutshell of my beliefs about the life and death process. 

Because, I have  deep faith that there is a God in the Heavens, a reason to be here and know what happens after death I don't think death is the worse thing that could happen.  That doesn't mean I like it or that I don't get sad when people die.  However, I have a great sense of peace about death not being the end.  I have long ago accepted that families can be together forever.  There is a reason we often refer to God as our Heavenly Father, the Father or Father in Heaven. We live in family groups here because that is the order of things.  It makes no sense to me to love so deeply and be so committed to our families only to be separated by death never to see each other again.  We will live with our families in the next life.

At the moment of death our loved ones who have passed, for lack of a better phrase, come to pick us up.  We often hear of people near death talking to or about people that have passed as if they were in the room.  I submit that they are.  Just because we don't see them doesn't mean that they aren't present and even communicating with the one dying. 

My sister Dee's death is something I haven't really written about.  I talk about it openly, I don't try to clean it up or make it sound less harsh, I just say she committed suicide.  When it first happened two years ago, needless to say it was devastating.  We, as a family, sat around a waiting room in a hospital for what seemed like weeks but was really just a few days.  We sat, paced, cried and prayed while we waited to find out if there was any hope for her to live.  I remember the first time I tried to sleep after I visited her in the hospital, I just lay awake for hours, with the thought, my sister is dead, running around and around in my mind like a broken record, over and over again.  Being a nurse I knew she was gone, being a woman of faith, I also knew that if it was the Lord's will she could recover completely. 

To take care of myself through this I have chosen what some may consider a selfish course. But, I don't care.  I didn't know if I would survive intact if I didn't make my own way.  So, I talk about her suicide when I want, to whomever I want and say what I want to say about it.  I don't care if others are comfortable with the topic or not or what they want to know, I just say whatever.  That being said I am not crazy, I don't feel like it is for me to discuss this with my patients or their families, nor do I go around harassing strangers with tales of my sister's suicide.

Oh, and one more thing, do me a favor and don't kill yourself.   Please, suicide, as my Aunt Bonnie said so succinctly, is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.   If someone reading this and is thinking about hurting themselves, Stop! There is help and there is a way out. I don't have all the answers, despite the rumors to the contrary.  But I know personally how absolutely painful and senseless it is to see someone decide to end it all.  I know, personally, how devastating it is to lose someone in such a useless way.  I wouldn't want anyone to have to go through what my family and I have gone through. 

I think that death is a part of our cycle of existence.  In some ways it could be celebrated.  Not like having a party with balloons and a banner saying "So and So is dead, let's paint the town red."  But with solemnity, recognizing that someone has finished their course, they fought the good fight and done what the Lord sent them here to do.  They are free from pain and sorrow and have returned home to be with their Father in Heaven, their Savior Jesus Christ and the family that have gone on before.  How can that be anything but a reason to rejoice?  

Yet, it is so very hard in the moment.  When we realize that they are not here with us, we can't just pick up the phone and call, we won't see them again until we die can be overwhelming.  When we see the injustice of time cut short through circumstances that seem so unfair, it is difficult to understand why.  I can see how hard it would be for someone who doesn't have any confidence that this is not the end to find peace or to make sense of death.  How very painful it must be to face death of a loved one with no knowledge of what comes next.     

Death is part of life, we start dying the moment we are born or so they say.  If that is true then let's make every day a day to relish and enjoy. Let's make the most of our time.  Do something worth while, something that no matter when you go, you will know you made the world a little better even if you are the only one who knows it.