When Someone Wants to Die

Lean In

Listen

Bite your tongue

Assume for one fat moment that

They know what is right, best, better for them than you!

Know that what you are hearing is THEIR truth.

Somewhere in this story of “I don’t want to be here”,

You will hear why death is better for them than life as it is.

YOU be the brave one

Face every word and every unreasonable but honest reason;

Every feeling, pain, angst, and each point of suffering.

See their open hand to God praying for mercy

Or their fist and jaw clenched, closing the door

On words they’d like to say, like:

“Why have you left me here in this horrible place”?

Or “What good am I here, like this?”

You may be powerfully tempted but don't give them answers.

Listen to the difference in the life they once had

And the one they are now living.

Have a little mercy party, a celebration with them

Right there in the land of their blown up dreams and wishes

In the land of “I never thought I’d be like this!”

Shout with them as they scream and cry about all the

Things they’ve lost in their recent past

And in this current rough ride of their disappointing present.

Then prepare yourself to bear the story of their unwelcome future.

Behold with them all the ways that their body has and will continue to forsake them.

Listen to their mind disappearing --without a ticket home.

How long are you willing to uphold someone’s great wish to die?

And be the one to hold them in your arms without fixing, advising, or dialing 911?

Think of all the pretty, lovely, exquisite, bountiful, glorious gifts

That this life offers.

Put yourself in this place of longing for death.

Place this longing inside all the other dreams and wishes

And extraordinary experiences life has ever given you or anyone.

Prepare yourself to be bigger and better than you ever-felt possible

As you hold one of life’s most feared, unwanted, hated, inevitable realities in you own body and mind.

Hold this without convincing or trying to talk them out of it.

Without shoving “Look how much you have to be grateful for” down their throats.

Just stay with their last great hope “not to survive” this final wreckage of a life.

Don’t pretend for one more moment that you know best--

That what you believe is right--

That any kind of living is better than death.

Tarron Estes 2/10/20

Tarron Estes is the founder and director of The Conscious Dying Institute of Boulder, Colorado; a Faculty of The Watson Caring Science Institute (WCSI) and Adjunct Faculty with University of Colorado School of Nursing. She is a charter member of NEDAlliance.org, a newly forming collective of end of life educators creating standards of care, scope of practice, and a Practicum for graduates of End of Life Doula Programs. She is a member of the NHPCO End of Life Doula Council and leader in end of life doula certification and the positive death movement.

Have you been called to become a sacred passage end-of-life doula?