The Great Adventure from Birth to Death

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Patt Lind-Kyle, author of the new Embracing the End of Life.

It probably took around nine months for you to be born here on earth. As you were growing in your mother’s womb you were not terribly aware of what was happening in your parents’ life. Well, as you can imagine, they were making important preparations before your arrival. Your parents were building a wonderful nest for you with toys, clothes, furniture, and more. Sometimes your mother had to wait over the nine months, or perhaps popped out early. She had to become very patient and adaptable for your intended arrival time.

Very similar to your birth is another major life event: your death. In contrast to building a nest at birth, at the time of death you are letting go of the nest of things that you have collected over the years. Like birth, death also has its own time as to when it arrives.

Both of these transitions cannot be controlled. Your pregnant mother may have felt that her body had a mind of its own as you grew in the womb. The dying person may similarly experience the dying of the body as something they cannot control.

As the time came for your birth, your mother may have worried about the process of giving birth: “Will it hurt? Will I like you when you arrive? What will you be like?” Also your mother likely worried, “Will I have supportive and nurturing people to help me?” She may have had feelings of fear and growing anxiety. In the same reality, the dying person, as they approach death, may have the same anxiety with many of the same questions. The truth is that the body knows how to give birth. If interventions are kept to a minimum, the process of birth has its own rhythm. If there are too many interventions, the birth process can become very difficult. In the same way, too many medical interventions can prolong the dying process and interrupt the natural inner experience of the dying person.

And just as with the birthing process, during the dying process fear and confusion by family and caregivers about what is happening can not only interfere with the process of the person dying, but can also create uncertainty and inappropriate actions from the family and caregivers.

Surrender, patience, and letting go are needed in both birthing and dying. In the end, as you go through the positive nature of this transition called dying, no one will be able to change the way you feel or how to deal with your fear or uncertainty except yourself. Learning to face your death without fear is like learning to be separated from your mother at birth and facing the fear of a confusing world.

Just as we have the gift of birth, we have the gift of our death. Both birth and death, and what happens in between, is what we call our life. Learning to accept all of it, including death, is the great adventure. Kahil Gibran, in his book The Prophet, said, “You would know the secret of death, but how shall you find it unless you see it in the heart of life.”

Our thanks to Patt for her guest post! For more from Patt Lind-Kyle, read her article, “5 Ways to Ease the Fear of Death.”