beduya misa rrl (comments in parentheses in between sentences)

Chapter II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES
In hoping to affirm the concepts of death, its factors and effects that were pointed out by Morrie Schwartz in Mitch Albom’s novel Tuesdays with Morrie, the researchers have searched for concepts of death that are based from different cultures and religions, from philosophical, medical, and psychological theories. Furthermore, the researchers also want to acknowledge and understand the dying process which Morrie Schwartz had undertaken. With that goal in mind, the researchers have also considered articles, thesis, dissertations and other materials that are related to the study. In doing so, the researchers will not only gain knowledge about the different concepts of death, but will also be able to recognize the dying person’s reactions and adaptations to dying. This chapter compares and contrasts the different data sources, interprets and synthesizes them. Specifically, the first section of this chapter discusses the various definitions of death from the following aspects: biological, clinical and psychological. Secondly, this chapter deliberates the different views on death and dying based from different aspects: psychological, philosophical, cultural and religious. Lastly, this chapter unfolds and explains the factors of conceptualizing death and dying, and how these factors affect the people’s perception of death and dying.
Definition and Views on Death and Dying
A. Definition from different sciences
According to Rick Garlikov (2002) in his website, there have been many debates on what the true definition of death is. Anyhow, he described death as the stage in which the body ceases to perform important activities or processes that can no longer be revived or regained despite receiving medical or technological assistance. In this state, the dead are unable to perform the major activities the living can, such as breathing, hearing or thinking.
In addition, Johnson (2011) states that clinically, death is simply an event when a victim or patient has stopped breathing. He further adds (tense consistency. you used past tense earlier) that this is caused by the oxygen not entering the body which will consequently cause the death of body tissues and cardiac arrest. In addition, he cites suffocation, drowning, injuries or poisoning as the factors that causes clinical death. Moreover, he states that biological death is much more serious since it is the death of the brain cells due to lack of oxygen. He then asserts that what follows clinical death is biological death. From that, he concludes that if early action and response is given to clinical death, then there’s a great possibility that biological death will be prevented.
Psychologically, Quint (1967) described (tense consistency. you used present tense in the previous para)death as a critical event which initiates change in two major ways. First, according to Quint (1967), death interrupts whatever interaction or activity is in progress at the moment – whether it is an ongoing treatment, or social conversation. Secondly, she said that death provokes a response to those who are present and each person reacts from his own perspective. Specifically, she cited that the family may start to grieve, or the patient beside may wonder if that will happen to him. She then emphasized that each person’s response to the situation is dependent to (on) each person’s view or meaning on death. However, these views on death vary and thus, will lead to divergent perceptions and definitions of the situation. She further added that since emotional tension is likely to be high at this important time, there’s also a great possibility that there will be misinterpretations and misunderstandings of actions of witnesses as a result of divergent perspectives on death. Therefore, in this situation, one should be open-minded and sensitive to the actions of the others to avoid commotion and arguments.
B. Psychological basis
Death, although a much avoided topic and even with its philosophical implications, has been the subject for research for psychologists for they hoped to help the bereaved people in their grieving process. How we view death can be formed as early as childhood and as a stepping stone for the psychologists’ research, they tried to study the children’s views on death and gauge the level of its maturity. In doing so, there are factors that need to be considered first that can affect in the death concept formation of the children.
Hostler, as cited by Demin (1984), states that psychologists concur that a child is just like any other individual whose view on death is heavily influenced by the child’s “cognitive development, psychosocial development, and unique set of experiences within the family’s cultural and religious framework” (p. 19). He further states that the psychologists believed that a young child does not have the capability of understanding death. From that, he concludes that young children do not understand death, but this does not mean that they do not have any experiences with death. To clarify this idea, he cites Hall’s study which involves a questionnaire that asks the adults’ experiences with death. The results show that the adults recall their experiences during the age of 2-5 years. With these results, Hall, as reviewed by Demin (1986), has come to a conclusion that experiences with death can have a great impact on a child.
Supplementing Demin’s argument, Slaughter and Griffiths (2007) asserted (tense consistency) that the children’s first recognition of death is at the period when they learn about the basic biological concepts of life and death – the preschool period. They continued that at this period, though the concept was still immature, children usually think death as something that occurs only to some/other people such as the ailing and/or aging people and therefore can be avoided by having a healthy lifestyle and avoiding accidents. For children, death is just a normal interruption to the living state, as if one is still alive even though death had already caught you, thinking that the dead can still do and need the things the living does. Furthermore, they also affirmed that children of this stage are not even aware of the real possible causes of death other than the internal factors such as illness or external factors such as accidents.
Moreover, in the dissertation of Demin (1986), he (who? The modifier is not intended to him but to what can ve be found in the paper) found out from reviewing some works that the connection of a child’s experience with death and his perspective of death have shown different results. Specifically, Bolduc’s work, as well as Reilly, Hazazi and Lynne’s were the ones that showed positive results, and Peck and Kane’s work conversely produced the opposite. He assessed the results and compared it with the Piagetian stage which is a part of Jean Piaget’s Piagetan Development theory. Particularly, this theory discusses about how children perceive things differently from adults and children pass through different stages as these cognitive development progresses (Krapp, 2005). As shown from the results, Demin (1986) concluded that how children understand death formally can be determined by the Piagetian stage, the stage in which the children’s cognitive development progresses, rather than their involvement with death. However, he had also learned that perspective of children on death with the Piagetian stage was assumed to be less effective. In short, the children’s concept of death can be predicted more effectively by their psychological and developmental stage rather than their experiences with death. However, with terminally ill children and their knowledge on death, he found out that it may be possible that how these children see death is far more advanced than most of the children who are not ill, making able-bodied children’s exposure to death less influential to their perspective. With these ambiguous results, he suggested that further research on this area should be conducted.
Dying, which is the onset of death, is similar to adolescence, a phase wherein if not practiced, can trigger “anxiety”, as well as “maladjustment” to the individual involved along with those who surround him/her (Anthony and Koupernik, 1972). Anthony and Koupernik (1972) stated that the dying people are like adolescents who are “in-between people” that are yet finding themselves, therefore not quite categorized as easily as those of adults or children. In the same manner, they referred the dying as people who do not belong to life or to death and are just about to unite with the “characterless dead”. They assumed that the living and the dying has (have) a difficult gap that can be compared to a generation gap, and that the dying people are often closer to their relatives and friends compared to the living. However, they have also observed that the behavior within a group of children who suffer leukemia is different. They noticed that these children are “extremely sensitive to absences” and are not strongly affixed to one another. Furthermore, they have also remarked that these children try to know about each other by learning about their disease, diagnosis, medication, and how long they think their lifeline is, which is a very peculiar manner for children to get to know other children.
On the other hand, there are only few information about what could be the adults’ view on death and even fewer was known on mentally handicapped adults due to the belief that an individual’s concept of death became clear and firm at early adolescence and remains constant all throughout (McEvoy, 1989). McEvoy (1989) noticed from recent researches (no such word; research studies) that mentally handicapped adults may be good springboards of research on concept of death because they have rich and differing views on death resulted from their varied dreams about their deceased loved ones. However, little research has been done on this area due to lack of interest. He asserted that the notion that talking about mental handicap and death as taboo topics contributed to the researchers’ indifference to study on these matters. He continued that the prejudgment and doubt on the reliability of the mentally handicapped people’s views on death is also a factor that hinders any study about them. Knowing this, he concluded that collecting data about these adults’ attitudes, understanding and expectations on dying people will help us enhance our knowledge and concept about mentally handicapped adults.
C. Philosophical basis
Albeit the great effort exerted by many psychologists and researchers just to study the nature of death and the development of death concept formation, there are still things that science can’t grasp. Particularly, there are certain events in life that can be only explained philosophically and not scientifically, especially if those events have philosophical implications such as death.
Kierkegaard (1941) for example, asserted that the sickness unto death is despair and not the literal meaning which most people have. He noticed that most people usually understood this concept as sickness being the end of everything and death is the outcome of this sickness. From that, it would imply that most people perceive mortal sickness as analogous to sickness unto death. However, Kierkegaard does not view sickness unto death in this way. For him, sickness unto death is the despair of being not able to die. He explained that this occurs in an odd way; when death is the one’s greatest danger, one hopes for life but when one became acquainted with even more frightful danger, one hopes for death as a way to escape. He further said that when one faces a great danger and thinks that death is the only hope, despair is the hopelessness of being not able to die. An example of this is of those dying or terminally ill people at the hospitals whose lives were hanging by a thread and were just hoping for death to come to end their suffering and yet they cannot die.
Moreover, Kierkegaard (1941) stated that death is not the outcome or the last phase of sickness but instead, it is continually the last. He pointed out that to be freed from this sickness is impossible since sickness and death, comprise the “not being able to die”. In other words, it is impossible to liberate oneself from sickness and suffering since sickness and death are inevitable and unstoppable.
Furthermore, Osman Nuri Topbas (2010) in his book The Last Breath, said that the only certain event that will happen to all living beings, which is death, is synonymous to one’s personal judgment day. He added that whether people are conscious of it or not, death is what people actually encounter most of the time every day and night and they should never forget that. He continued that death is always right behind each person in the world, waiting for the right time to ambush. To explain this, he said that to live every passing day is to put oneself one step closer to the grave. Even with this reality, he observed that almost all people just put a blind eye to this reality. A clear of example of refusal to accept this reality is the celebration of one’s birthday. In celebrating a birthday, one deems it as a celebration for having lived one’s life one more year and not one year less to his life span or one year less closer to his own death. Topbas (2010) then concluded that human being should contemplate the meanings of the passages written in the sacred books, such as the Bible or Q’uran, and live a life guided by these passages; that one must think first before he acts before it’s too late since there will be no second chance in the afterlife.
In addition, Rinpoche (1992) noticed that after all of its scientific and technological advancements, the modern Western society has no real and clear understanding of what is death, or what happens in death or after death. He learned that people of the world today are taught to deny death, which means they either live under the denial of death or the fear of it. He further noticed that even talking about death is a gruesome or a taboo topic for most people, thinking that simply mentioning it is synonymous to wishing for it. He continued that there were also people who have an either pathetic or carefree perspective on death. Specifically, he said that these people believed that everything will work out fine in their death, that death is not something to be worried about. However, Rinpoche (1992) said that these two perspectives or attitudes on death are very far from what is the true essence of death. He asserted that death, as all the other greatest spiritual traditions of the world clearly suggested, is not the end. Specifically, he cited the Buddhists as an example, who viewed life and death as a whole. He further added that death is only a beginning of another chapter of life; it is a mirror that reflects the entire meaning of one’s life. Therefore, there’s no need for us to deny or fear death since it is only a part of the natural cycle of life.
D. Cultural basis
Albeit the psychologists’ careful study of the different views on death of different age groups especially on children and evaluating the level of the maturity of their concepts, it cannot be denied that one’s cultural roots can be a factor in one’s death concept formation, particularly if those cultural views on death were deeply embedded on an individual. Furthermore, it’s also undeniable that some cultural views on death reflect certain philosophical concepts.
ElGindy (2004) proposed that death, as well as dying is universal, and every human will experience it. However, the people’s beliefs and views on death are greatly influenced by religion and culture. She was astonished by the fact that the nurses still need to learn how to adapt to different religious and/or cultural needs to their everyday lives. She asserted that quality care is the same as being appropriate with care culturally for some patients with different cultures. She insisted that it is necessary to take note that dying is not easy and nobody needs more stress or difficulties just because of cultural misunderstanding. And to avoid such misunderstanding, one must learn to appreciate every culture’s beliefs on death.
Prehistoric men for example, were very thoughtful in burying the dead which can be observed from placing ornaments, weapons and food in the graves of the dead for they believe that these things will be needed in the next life (Zaide, as cited in Arjona, Arnaldo, Fojas, Maniwang, & Alcuizar, 1993).
Furthermore, Carino (as cited in Arjona, Arnaldo, Fojas, Maniwang, and Alcuizar, 1993) added that the ancient Egyptians also believed in the afterlife that’s why when a person dies, he must present his record of early life to Osiris, ruler of the Realm of Dead, so that he will be evaluated and judged where to go based on his deeds on earth. Expectedly, if the soul has proved (proven) himself worthy, he (gender-bias) will receive eternal peace, otherwise if his bad deeds outweigh the good ones, his soul will surely be thrown and be devoured by the feared hungry-beast which is a counterpart of hell.
Alip (as cited in Arjona, Arnaldo, Fojas, Maniwang, & Alcuizar, 1993) also remarked that for pre-Hispanic Filipinos, death was considered as a continuation of the earthly life, and thus when a person dies, his personal possessions should be buried with him. He further stated that the pre-Hispanic Filipinos believed in the divine retribution – a reward for the good and a punishment for the wicked which was to be sent to the Kasamaan or hell.
Additionally, Trelease, as cited by Kubler-Ross (1975), observed that death for Alaskan Indians is not the same with common people’s notion that death is like an unexpected thief in the night that no one has been prepared for. He noticed that on the contrary, Alaskan Indians take an active full participation on their death. It’s as if death is part of the plan for their lives, a choice that was willed and not forced to them. He continued that such participation can be observed on dying Alaskan’s careful planning of his death, having celebration of prayers and hymns and bidding goodbye or talking to people they haven’t talked with for a long time. He then deduced that death only ends life but not growth of oneself; it is instead the start of the greatest growth of their life ever in understanding, loving and faith.
Moreover, Anderson (2011) states that most African people have a tradition of removing the dead body not through the door but through a hole in the wall. He further states that the Africans’ reason for this is to make it hard, if not impossible, for the dead to return to their home. Furthermore, he says that the Africans believed that this will take effect as soon as they close the hole in the wall in which the dead body has passed through. He asserts that there are also times that these Africans remove the corpse’s feet first so as to make it symbolically point away from the corpse’s former home.
In general, the values that had been acceptable in the past are connected to the importance of death and dying (Anthony and Koupernik, 1972). Fulton (as cited in Anthony and Koupernik, 1972) said that death oriented cultures still exist in Spain, Mexico, and Italy. He explained that cultures like these, the cemetery and the church are always constructed near each other, and aspects regarding to death are treated in a way that other cultures would consider gruesome. He further added that in societies like these, how death is seen is important in life, that’s why objects like skulls and bones are not rare in their lives.
E. Religious basis
Other than one’s cultural roots, one’s religion may also be a factor in one’s conceptualization of death specifically the devout and pious ones. For some, religion is their foundation of their belief system on life, death and, afterlife.
Hindus, for example, as stated by Carino (as cited in Arjona, Arnaldo, Fojas, Maniwang, & Alcuizar, 1993), believed in reincarnation, which is the belief that when a person dies, only his physical body is deteriorated but not his soul. He added that the Hindus believed that the soul of that person will transfer to another body, and it may be on a higher or lower form depending on how one meaningfully lived his life on earth. Furthermore, he remarked the Hindus’ belief that to be united with Brahman, God’s counterpart, one must first undergo a series of life-death-rebirth cycles.
Catholics have also a different view on death. According to Arjona, Arnaldo, Fojas, Maniwang, and Alcuizar (1993), death is viewed by Catholics as the threshold of life due to resurrection. They added that resurrection is “part of the Creator’s plan for his people and is accepted as an important part of person’s life” (p. 2). Therefore, during Spanish Era, the belief of life after death was very strong among the Filipinos since most of them were already baptized as Roman Catholic Christians.
In relation to Hindus’ and Christians’ views on death, Bryce (2007) found out that between both ages and religious groups, there exist a varied understanding and conception about death and afterlife. She discovered that Hindus’ beliefs are less diverse compared to Christians. Furthermore, she realized that adult Hindus have also less varied beliefs compared to Hindu children. On the other hand, she noticed that adult Christians have more different beliefs compared to Christian children as a result of their dissimilar ways of understanding spiritual questions like “What is resurrection? Is it a resurrection of the physical body or of the soul?”
From the results of her study, Bryce (2007) received precise responses about human life, death and afterlife occurs in all people from all age groups, but confusion comes in when it is about other entities such as animals or plants. Based from these responses, she then stated that logical responses about human life and death are important for death education since it usually focuses on humans’ death but it cannot help much anymore when it comes to other entities. She argued, however, that there was no agreed or accepted truth either from Hindus and Christians that could foretell the destiny of an animal after its death which can disappoint and disturb children having pets. She further added that plants may cause confusion about what could be its fate after it dies, but its death is insignificant to people, especially children since almost everyone don’t get sad or bothered when it comes to death of plants, unlike to animals.
Bryce (2007) inferred from her thesis that the afterlife concepts of children under 6-8 years old and even 10-12 years old are still under improvement. She remarked that this confusion of children and even of adults about afterlife seems to be particularly evident among Christians. She then suggested that the religious programs/groups should focus on defining clearly the religion’s beliefs on life, death and afterlife, and allow children to question and discuss their divergent beliefs to make it clear for them and to minimize, if can’t be removed, confusions.
Generally, there exist logical differences in life, death and afterlife perceptions between both Hindus and Christians, and both adults and children, and these religious and developmental differences are essential to effectively relate or sympathize to all people when it comes to much avoided topic of death (Bryce, 2007).
Dying Process
Derek Humphry (1991), in his book Final Exit (italicize), discusses the suffering of the terminally ill people and justifies euthanasia, self-deliverance or suicide as means for escape from this suffering. However, he says that in real life, it is very difficult to determine when is the perfect time for the terminally ill person to end his life. He asserts that nobody wants to die; however, this is not the case for some people having incurable or degenerative sickness who viewed death as the best alternative to end their misery.
Furthermore, Humphry (1991) states that these people are usually faced with two issues. First, he says that these people are not at all certain how close they are to death but they think it may be closer than what they have been informed. To clear out this issue, he suggests that these people should talk to their physicians about the progress of their disease and ask if there is any available therapy which they can try. Secondly, he assumes that there must be some hidden and good reason of these terminally ill people’s reluctance to participate in their dying process at a particular point. He believes that there must be something else happening on the edge of their lives that they want to take part such as wedding, birth or any similar life-affirming event.
From these issues that most of the terminally ill people face, Humphry (1991) concludes that these people are not really ready to die yet especially if they doubt the sense of it. He suggests that to all people under this condition, if one is in doubt to commit self-deliverance or suicide, then don’t do it. He further suggests that one who is terminally ill should instead make the most of the time he has left.
To understand why terminally ill people choose death as an escape, it’s important to know and understand the processes they undergo. One of the theories on dying process is the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s stage theory of dying. To explain this theory, Copp (1998) reviewed Kubler-Ross’s stage theory of dying and said that this theory proposed that the psychological response to dying comes in five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. In accordance to this theory, she described the denial stage as the stage when one denies his current situation as a result of the shock after knowing that one has an incurable disease. She continued that this stage is followed by the second stage which is anger and consequently of third stage which is bargaining. She asserted that in the latter stage, some people engage in bargaining by making promises to God in exchange for a longer time to live. Furthermore, she said that this stage is then followed by depression and it is in this stage when one can’t longer deny his imminent death due to the apparent progress of the disease. She conjectured that the last stage, which is acceptance, is possible if enough time and help are given to support an individual in working through his bereavement and/or dying process. Moreover, Kastenbaum (as cited in Copp, 1998) said that one of the reasons why this theory was unsuspectingly accepted by the general public and health professionals is that this theory revived, recognized, and justified the topic of death which had previously been a taboo or morbid topic for most people.
To further understand the process of dying, E. Mansell Pattison (as cited in Copp, 1998) proposed the ‘living-dying interval’ model. He said that each of us expected ahead a path or goal for ourselves and that goal will be changed dramatically at the face of a crisis such as the knowledge of one’s death. He added that the ‘living-dying interval’ occurs between the ‘crisis of the knowledge of death’ and the ‘point of death’. From that, he postulated three clinical phase of ‘living-dying interval’: the acute phase, the chronic phase and the terminal phase.
The acute phase was described by Pattison (as cited in Copp, 1998) as the phase when one is having rising anxieties with the knowledge of impending death. He further added that this is also the phase when one is trying cope up with death by understanding the disease, considering the possibilities, developing strategies on how to deal effectively with disease-related issues, and expressing one’s feelings sincerely about the future or past such as what one should have done in the past and what are still could be done for the future.
Moreover, Pattison (as cited in Copp, 1998) described the chronic phase as the phase when one confronts fears surrounding dying and death such as fear of abandonment or fear of suffering or pain. In addition, he said that it is also in this phase when one tries to find meaning in suffering or mortality aside from managing the worsening symptoms of death and trying to live normally even in the state of dying.
Lastly, Pattison (as cited in Copp, 1998) described the last phase, which is the terminal phase, as the phase when one realizes that death will not go away or irreversible and inevitable. He added that in this phase, one became more concerned to others, worldly things became immaterial to him and one tries to talk and bid goodbye to one’s loved ones as a preparation and acceptance of imminent death. He said that these phases explains or gives reason of the different tasks done by a dying a person.
The strength of Pattison’s theory was it was able to consider the person’s feelings, reactions and steps as the person faces death in integrating dying or death (Copp, 1998).
Concurring to Pattison’s theory, Charles Corr (as cited in Copp, 1998) suggested that a dying person should have an active participation on one’s dying process. He further supported his suggestion by saying that coping is an active process that activates a person’s positive disposition in seeking solutions to problems and in successfully adapting new death-related challenges. Thus, it involves tasks, and these tasks may be undertaken in a number of ways as one became prepared for it. And the more choices one has, the more empowered and less of a victim one feels.
In his theory, Corr (as cited in Copp, 1998) postulated four primary areas of task-work for dying people according to needs: physical, psychological, social and spiritual. To start with, he said that physical needs involve satisfying one’s bodily needs and reducing physical stress in ways that are consistent to the things one values personally. Secondly, he described psychological needs as the needs that involve maximizing one’s psychological security, autonomy and richness of living. He added that this area of task-work is associated with approaching death with importance as well as humor, revisiting the past, discovering life after death and others that constitutes healthy death as recognized by caregivers. Moreover, Corr (as cited in Copp, 1998) said that social needs involve sustaining and enhancing interpersonal relationship or attachment one values, sharing to other people how death affected one’s life and finishing unfinished business. Examples of this are bidding goodbyes to long-lost friend/s and asking forgiveness. Lastly, he asserted that spiritual needs involve recognizing, enhancing and confirming sources of spiritual strength and meaning and in doing so, fostering hope.
The strength of Corr’s theory is the assumption that dying is not restricted only to the dying individual, but the experience also affected the people who are drawn to that dying individual such as family, friends and colleagues (Copp, 1998).
Factors Affecting the Views and Treatment on Death and Dying
According to Cox, Garett, and Graham (2005), portrayals of death by media, such as Disney movies may affect children’s concept of death. They hypothesized that these death scenes may be good or bad for the children. They presumed that it is good, since those portrayals may help children understand death in a less fearful and harsh way. In addition, they deduced that these movie scenes may also help the children to learn on how to cope up and understand the situation when someone dear to them dies. Furthermore, since most of the parents or adults avoid talking about the grim reality of death with the children, they assumed that these movies will serve as a starting point for both parents and children to discuss freely the most avoided topic of death as depicted in the Disney movies by relating them to the reality, removing the unrealistic parts, and clarifying the parts which are exaggerated or perplexing. On the other hand, they speculated that it may bad because it may affect the children’s concept of morality since most of the Disney movies depict the death of the bad guys – the antagonists, giving the children the perception that bad people really deserve to die. They further added that these movies may also distort the children’s concept of death when they depict unclear and exaggerated way of death or in relaying vague messages pertaining to death. Additionally, it is during these times that parents should freely discuss with their children what is really happening or the reality in a way that is understandable to the children (Cox, Garett, & Graham, 2005).
Therefore, we can assume that death for children may be as simple as sleeping but when the media comes in, they change or distort it by persistently depicting in the movie scenes that bad people will die and deserve to die, and the good people may come back alive or there will be always someone who will bring them back in the world of living. And as a result, the children may bring this perception until adulthood and may become their foundation on the concept of death.
Mass media, according to Arjona, Arnaldo, Fojas, Maniwang, and Alcuizar (1993), has been one of the reasons why many people viewed death as something fearsome and mysterious event instead of something important to life (problematic) and thus making the discussion of death a taboo subject. Additionally, they stated that these distortions brought by the media can be observed from massacre scenes on the evening news and photograph of charred bodies from the victims of fire or plane crash on the television and newspapers which would surely make anyone fear death.
Some people, even though death is a shunned topic, like to read newspapers with the headlines of death of somebody who is not even related to them. They think death will only happen to others and not to themselves. Death had become a “muse” for entertainment (Dumdum & Rosauro, 2003). Dumdum and Rosauro (2003) pointed out that the victims of massacre or murder are not only victims of the crime but also a victim of being used by media, specifically newspapers as a hot topic that would make them sell much. They added that this would augment to people’s fear to die, especially if their death was supposed to be “private” would become a “public death” just because newspapers want to have great sales with their death as headlines.
Additionally, according to Hans O. Mauksch, as cited by Kubler-Ross (1975) in her book Death: The Final Stage of Growth, one of the reasons why it is hard to die or why people fear death is the health institutions’ perspective of dying people. He argues that in our modern and complex society, we set up expectations and roles that should be done by the health institutions such as the hospitals and its workers: the doctors and nurses. Specifically, he says that the roles the society expected from the doctors and nurses were to heal or to cure sickness and to aid in recovery process. Furthermore, he states that these very expectations caused the shift of health institutions from being devoted to help those poor and dying people to an institution that focuses only on meeting the expectations of the society. From that, he concludes that even with the advancement of the science and technology of medicine, health institutions still perceive the dying people as failures of their roles without even considering that those people served as reminders of the limits of the science and technology of medicine. He then presents a prevalent example of this notion of the health institutions which is the whisking away as quickly as possible of the bodies of the dead persons even minutes have only passed after their death, as if their deaths were a haunting reminder to them that they failed. With that connotation, it’s hard for people to die for they don’t want to symbolize failure that needs to be get rid of or hidden away, they want to be cared and cherished even in death.
Furthermore, Grof and Halipax (as cited in Arjona, Arnaldo, Fojas, Maniwang, and Alcuizar, 1993) asserted that the man’s fear of the unknown is also a factor that augments one’s fear of death. They further added that since ancient times, death is an enigmatic and mystifying experience of the human race.
Moreover, according to Arjona, Arnaldo, Fojas, Maniwang, and Alcuizar (1993), the media is also responsible of symbolizing death as an enemy that needs to be defeated instead of a companion in one’s growth. They argued that this notion was made stronger by our competitive society. From that, they deduced that when one is dying and has not yet reached his goals, it would mean that he has lost the battle. They further assumed that when one is dying, he also became an unproductive source that will burden the society which is always in competition with others. Furthermore, Grof and Halipax (as cited in Arjona, Arnaldo, Fojas, Maniwang, and Alcuizar, 1993), added that it became difficult for an individual to personally relate to death with the massive scale of death prevalent in the world such as earthquakes, famine, drought, floods, epidemics and even the impending nuclear war that could annihilate an entire country in an instant. They pointed out that the mass media’s mass-scale portrayals of technological and apocalyptic weapons/objects distorted one’s view on death as something private and essential event of life.
On the other hand, Byrne and McMurray (as cited in Iranmanesh, 2009) proposed that nurses who work with dying people have an enhanced perspective and philosophy on death and dying. They further emphasized that these nurses’ view on death and dying became more reasonable. Specifically, these nurses view death as an inevitable, natural and real phenomenon of life. Iranmanesh (2009) added that these nurses’ personal development can be regarded as a requirement for professional development since the personal dimension of professional identity is essential in hospice care. In other words, before developing one’s professional identity, one should develop first his own personal identity; character before work.
Iranmanesh (2009) pointed out that even though death is a common existential matter, people’s death related attitudes, beliefs and practices are varied in different societies because they are individual-dependent factors. From this, Holloway (as cited in Iranmanesh, 2009) deduced that attitudes therefore are just affected and formed by the social and cultural context, including religious belief systems of an individual. In addition, Kastenbaum and Aisenberg (as cited in Iranmanesh, 2009) said that the attitude towards death is a belief system consisted of cognitive, affective, and behavioral components that reflects the people’s attitudes pertaining to death, dying, and bereavement.
Supporting Iranmanesh’s idea, Quint (1967) stated that a person’s reactions to death are really influenced by many personal and social factors. She indicated that there exists a classification of the patients according to their social value. Specifically, she noticed that children or young adults in the prime of life, who seem to have high personal and social value, tend to yield grief and poignant feel of loss in everyone. Conversely, the demise dying people who have low social value seem to be unnoticed.
In agreement with Quint’s theory, Epstein (1975) stated that it’s true that people’s treatment to a dying or terminally ill person depends on the dying person’s age. Specifically, as what Quint had already pointed out, Epstein (1975) said that people tend to be more perturbed of the death of a young person especially of a young child, and/or of an accomplished person compared to the elderly people.
To elaborately explain her idea, Epstein (1975) revealed that in case of a dying child, people tend to hide the real condition of a dying child by indulging the child with many gifts. She further added that these people have overlooked the child’s perceptions and feelings. She pointed out that one can’t stop the signs of death and sooner or later the child will notice it. She also pointed out that adults were wrong about the notion that children at early age have no idea about death. Though unclear and still immature, she recognized these characteristics of the children’s views on death and said that it is imperative for adults to inform and explain clearly the children of what is really death as soon as they can and as friendly way as they can. To strengthen this idea, she quoted Kavanaugh’s “Knowledge is kindness, ignorance is cruel.”
On the other hand, Epstein (1975) also noticed that most people have a tendency to feel equanimity or calmness in the death of old people. She further stated that this can be clearly observed by the expression “He has lived his life” when an old person dies. She explained that this expression connotes that people tend to feel that it alright for the old people to die since it is a common knowledge that the older one gets, the closer one gets to his own death. Albeit this fact, she remarked that one must not forget that this equanimity should not serve as a factor that will change the nature of our interaction with a dying person. Furthermore, she added that one must become clear with his attitudes on dying in relating with old people since most people seem to be uncertain in dying at old age. She remarked that some are reassuring each other that one has lived his life and it is time to let go. However, she also noticed that there are others who pretend that the old person is not dying. People, as what she has observed, talks about old age as the golden years and yet these people isolated the old people in “homes” such as home for the aged, where they will be certainly be off course of the mainstream of life. She deduced that this is a desperate attempt by the people to avoid and to completely forget their own inevitable end.
Iranmanesh (2009) then concluded that an individual’s attitude toward death, dying and bereavement reflects the individual’s willingness to take action to these events. Morgan (as cited in Iranmanesh, 2009) further added that the said attitude is formed by how an individual perceive the world, his place in it and his control of it.
These gathered data retrieved from theses, dissertations, books, journals and other significant sources, have helped the researchers to narrow down the broad concept of death. Furthermore, these materials have helped the researchers’ to have a deeper comprehension and appreciation of the different views on death of different cultures and religions that can be used in confirming and analyzing the concepts of death discussed by Morrie Schwartz in Mitch Albom’s book Tuesday’s with Morrie. These materials have also helped the researchers understand the actions Morrie Schwartz undertook which was justified as part of the dying process. The sources gathered further assisted the researchers in reaching a clearer concept on how and why Morrie Schwartz had such wisdom on the views pertaining to death and understand how vulnerable mankind is to the factors that distorts one’s views on death. Lastly, the data collected have helped the researchers to understand that this vulnerability may even result to the loss of one’s way of life because of the failure to accept death as integral part of one’s life.