Baby Boomers And The Fear Of Dying

“I know everybody has to die sooner or later. But I thought an exception would be made in my case.” William Saroyan

Everyone fears death. We are all afraid of the unknown. It represents a huge change in the status quo. It is normal to be afraid of death. “Even the wise fear death,” said the Buddha. “Life clings to life.”

We like to talk about the dying as if they are in a different class. It provides a degree of separation from us that makes us feel better and lets us deny our own mortality until we have been given some definite diagnosis. The truth is that we are dying as soon as we are born. No one is guaranteed a tomorrow.

But when we start to realize the inevitability of death and start preparing to die, we also might realize that we have just borrowed this body. If your belief system allows, you might think that you don’t really die. Your soul still lives on. As the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore writes, “Death is not extinguishing the light, it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.”

Very few people get to the fifth stage described by Dr. Kubler-Ross in her book, “On Death and Dying”. That is the stage of Acceptance. Many of us go kicking and screaming into the night. Is it because of the culture that we live in that sees death as a failure of the medical community to “fix it”? Is it related to our feelings of disdain for aging and our worship of youth? Not all cultures in the world are like this.

As the Baby Boomers age and more of us approach our own death, we will change the physical approach to dying with a green burial or a new form of cremation. But we will also look at the spiritual side with a mentality that started in the 60’s with the dawn of the peace movement and environmental concerns for Mother Earth. We are poised now to show an enlightened approach to the afterlife also. We have shunned the traditional religious attitudes as evidenced by our attendance in these houses of worship. Cremation in many communities is well over 50%. Cemeteries are now setting aside land for green burials. Home funerals are being featured in news articles.

Eventually, when someone dies, we will truly be celebrating their life instead of mourning their death. We might talk about that now, but it might be transformative to witness that happen in the next generation. To quote John Robbins from his book, “Healthy at 100”, he says, “When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. May you live so that when you die, the world will cry and you will rejoice.”