Do You Fear Loved Ones Dying? You’re Not Alone

“The thing about death is that we’re all terrified of it happening and we’re devastated when it does, and we go out of our way to pretend neither of these things is true.”

— Jodi Picoult, The Book of Two Way

I have a habit that I never speak about with others. It’s one of those things I just do automatically. Not every single day, but frequently, I worry about my core people, my husband, my son, and my sister—dying. I angst mostly when they get in a car and drive away. Or, if they’re driving when it’s raining buckets. Or flying. I don’t get butterflies in my stomach or fluttering in my chest, I just pray fervently that they be safe. I do the same for myself because I want to be here with my loved ones as long as possible. I don’t think it’s an unnatural fear, they are my ground, my greatest comforters, my best friends, my family. But I wonder, is this habit of thinking good for me?

How about you. Do you worry about losing your loved ones, too?

The World Gives Us Much Reason to Worry

Forgive me for being morbid and fueling your worries, but it’s no wonder all of us have constant undercurrents of fear. Just turn on the news. We are seeing unprecedented earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, and fires destroying homes and taking lives. Mass shootings. Freakish events like a crane crashing to the sidewalk killing a person on the way to work. And COVID! 687,000 have died, that’s more than the 1918 Spanish flu. Who would have imagined a pandemic in our lifetime? Then there’s all kinds of illnesses that threaten to strike and shorten our loved one’s lives. And let’s not forget all the killing and death we witness in our TV series’, movies, and the books we read.

The reality is—death is the bookend of life, as much as we want to keep it from our doorsteps.

So Much of Life is Out of Our Control

Each of us in our own way construct our life to have predictability, ritual, and stability. It helps us feel safe. Many of us can usually count on having control over who we spend time with, what we do in our free time, what we eat and where we’ll get to sleep. And how lucky we are to have the control we do have!

But so much of life is out of our control and laced with uncertainty. How our body and those of our loved ones will react and change over time; how other’s will behave and respond; weather and disasters; what happens to us because we are in a certain place at a certain time. All this and more perpetuate my fear of losing my loved ones! Can you relate?

David Kessler, author of Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, says,

“Fear doesn’t stop death; fear stops life.”

Fear stops life… such a powerful realization and motivator to get control of our fear. I found some interesting things people are doing to make peace with their fear of death. There are death doulas or death midwives, usually women, who understand the process of death and help families cope with a dying loved one by assisting them with all the tasks of dying aside from the medical ones. Their gift is enabling the living and dying to talk about the experience and integrate it as a natural part of life. I remember when my Aunt Laura was dying of brain cancer. I knew when it was the last time I’d see her. I so wanted to express my love and say goodbye, but my family was in denial pretending she was going to get better. I felt cheated. How helpful a doula could have been.

People who want to talk about their fears of death, like I’m doing now, can go to groups called death cafes where people meet to discuss with others their fears of death and dying in a supportive unstructured way. Believe it or not, there are over 10,000 groups worldwide in over 80 countries. Dealing with death fears is obviously on a lot of people’s minds! There’s a local chapter in East Windsor. For more information you can reach out to Laurie at rblau@comcast.net.

We Can Counteract Fear of Death Thoughts

1.     The first step in transforming or managing our fearful thoughts is to recognize them and why we have them. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to openly own my fears of losing my dearest loved ones. I just don’t want to imagine life without them. I feel so grateful for all they each bring into my life. I especially want my son Theo and his new wife Sarah to have a very long blessed life. They’re so young with so much positive possibility ahead of them. And truly for my husband, my sister and myself, I pray for the blessing of continued growing, loving, and the joy of our togetherness. How about you? What is the root of your fears of loss?

2.     The antidote to our fear for the safety of our loved ones is to deliberately create positive thoughts to counteract our negative repetitive thinking. I asked my sister Lois if she fears her daughters or me dying. She said, “I rarely do. I just hold continuous positive visions of each of you going through your day and your life.” I pray and ask for divine intervention. But now openly admitting my fearful negative visions, I am going to picture each of them happily going through their day then returning safely to their homes at night. Thankfully our thoughts and mental images are within our control.

 Research in neuropsychology reveals retraining our minds is possible but requires steady, patient effort. (And it’s well worth it.) The exciting thing is that because of our brain’s neuroplasticity, we can retrain and reshape our brains to be positive at any age.

Some reading to support you in retraining your brain: Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm and Confidence by Rick Hanson. The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology by Jack Kornfield. The Affirming Way of Life: See the Good, Speak the Good, Spread the Good by Gail Siggelakis (me!)

As I said, death is the bookend of life, and a part of life we’d naturally like to banish. But since it’s an impossibility, why not take actions that are in your control. Talk about your feelings about loss with others you trust or an organized group. Then replace fear thoughts with daily positive affirmations about your loved ones and your own well-being.  Unleash new positive possibilities by going a step further—let your loved ones know how much they mean to you, often!

The Affirming Way of Life is available on Amazon and can be a great uplift for yourself or a loved one.

Taking Notes: A Love Story

I’m honored to share a guest post by my son Theo’s favorite high school English teacher, Jason Armstrong. His blogs at his website WriteOnFightOn, take my breath away. Jason, a youngish father of three and a passionate writer, is living with Cerebellar Ataxia, a degenerative disease that impacts motor skills, coordination, vision and balance. I mention the disease, because with vulnerability and humor he puts on the page what it means to be challenged and human. After each of his posts I come away feeling deeply touched and more real. Read on and see for yourself.

In a world with Nicholas Sparks it's hard to write something original about love.

Love is a well-traveled topic. One, I'm sure, you've taken plenty of notes on.

Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is engraved your heart and scrolled among the stars.

Love is in air. Love is an open door. And, if you find the right station, love is a battlefield.

Anytime you write about love you ink a fine line between cliche' and Nicholas Sparks. So, in my attempt to avoid such fate, the only thing I can offer is a secret love story about love. So secret that when my wife reads this, she will know it for the first time.

I've written about my health issues and personal shame and failure but writing about love is something I've avoided. For me, writing about love is a little embarrassing. A little too revealing.

And plus, how do I write about love in such an authentic yet impenetrable way that it's not the subject of dissection, comparison and judgment?

Truth is-- you can't.

It's simple emotional physics (which should've totally been a 90's emo band name).

To love is to want. And to want is to have weakness. Therefore, you can't open yourself to love without subjecting yourself to dissection, comparison and judgment.

I fell in love with a girl when I was 16.

The first time I saw her standing in the blue painted threshold of the doorway to her biology class I just knew, with an absolute bone-certainty that I would marry her one day.

And 10 years later I did.

Even though that story is absolutely true, I understand you're skepticism. And I don't blame you.  It seems too easy and yet, at the same time, too impossible. Too Nicholas Sparks.

So I'll tell you another story that's more believable. Yet, in some ways, just as fantastical.

Cindy and I are sitting at large round table, the kind guests sit around at weddings. We're in the back of a Las Vegas hotel ballroom, the kind couples rent for weddings.

Except instead of a DJ, there's a UCLA professor at the far end of the ballroom. He's standing on a stage, behind a podium. To his right is a movie screen holding an MRI of a human brain. A brain whose cerebellum is damaged. A cerebellum that looks a lot like mine.

The room is filled with people of all ages. Some people in wheelchairs. Some people clutching canes and walking sticks. The same haunted glow in everyone's eyes.

We're in Las Vegas attending the National Ataxia Federation's annual conference for patients with neurological disease because seven months earlier I was diagnosed with cerebellar atrophy.

Cindy and I are surrounded by people of all ages stricken with rare neurological diseases. ALS. MS. Huntington's Disease. Brain tumors.

Some people sit with their spouse. Some sit their parents. Some sit alone.

The UCLA professor is discussing advancements in stem cell research as a way of improving and repairing brain growth.

Cindy is beside me taking notes.

Her hand moves in small yet amazing ways. She is writing down what the professor is saying as fast as he is saying it.

Her penmanship is catholic school perfect. Her notes are well-spaced and organized and her margins are aligned.

It was a secret moment in my history. One I've never told Cindy about.

A moment of enormous fear yet as my eyes trace the ink-curls of her words, a small moment of enormous comfort and safety.  A moment where love was learned. A moment when I finally realized I was lucky enough to find a woman who cared more for me than I could possibly care for myself.

A moment that gifted me the eventual courage to roll my shoulders and write these sentences--

Let my cerebellum soften to oatmeal. Let my brain cells explode. Let my eyes go blind. Because there's a girl with green eyes standing in the blue doorway and she's not moving. And she never will.

And that is what love becomes. After all the romance and celestial promises of the initial courtship, love becomes a lifetime of small moments that add up to make something enormous.

But even that seems Sparksian.

A chronically sick man whose hands are shaking, whose body aches, whose teetering on the edge of self-destruction is sitting beside his wife in a Las Vegas ballroom. They're high school sweethearts. They have three children together. But seven months ago things suddenly got harder.

And yet she still takes notes.

As the professor speaks and the damaged brain that holds the screen looms like a thundercloud over the room, with her free hand, she reaches across the table to hold his hand, to ease him, to feel his pain.

Jay is a published author, an award-winning teacher, and speaker. He believes in the power of storytelling and that life favors the brave. You can contact Jay and read more of his writings on his blog writeonfighton. org.