Yesterday evening I sat with fifteen strangers in a large garden at the edge of the city under a cherry tree. The sun dazzled me and burned into my skin; it felt like high summer. The men and women from the church district were all around sixty, and I, thirty-five and atheist if anything, had been invited as a death expert. They looked at me questioningly, shyly, suspiciously. What could I possibly tell these experienced people about death, let alone about life?
I read from my book and took the guests with me to encounter death, to accompany me through what I had seen. At first there was disagreement because they had had other experiences. When I said that my mother-in-law died at the moment when she was finally alone, several women nodded. They knew this from relatives or from their work. But one woman was indignant: how could one say that people want to die alone? Her mother had squeezed her hand and responded to her until the end. Another woman told of her father-in-law, who had remained in contact with her until his last breath.
There is no right or wrong when it comes to dying. Everyone lives individually; everyone dies individually. Relationships remain until the end. Perhaps my mother-in-law went at that moment because she no longer had to take account of us, or of her husband, who had made his own suffering the center of our lives during her dying. Another person who is waiting for death may be able to do that together with someone else and calmly enter this natural path of life.
Everyone dies their own death. That is precisely why it is so difficult to define a good death. In the end there are only individual cases. We can no longer ask anyone afterward or empirically determine what feels best for the dying. We can only accompany with empathy, listen when there is something to say, be present, fill the room, sense what is happening and let things take their course.
The pastor of the parish thought a great deal during the reading about whether what he does is right. In theology studies he had learned that a pastor should accompany the dying so that they leave the world comforted. He asked me whether I believe people seek comfort at the end.
I can imagine that people who have always sought comfort and support, who have wanted to rest in trust, also need this while dying. If faith has played a role in life, it will do so until the end. But I do not think that a dying person fundamentally needs comfort. Dying is natural, and I believe it is a quiet process that slowly removes a person from life and separates the outer from the inner.
If one can walk this path in peace, undisturbed by institutional procedures, perhaps no comfort is needed at all. Perhaps at the end one senses that everything is right as it is.
Juliane Uhl is a sociologist and author, works in a crematorium and is involved with the FUNUS Foundation. Her book is titled "Drei Liter Tod".
