How To Say Goodbye To Life

When we receive the announcement that our life is over, we can abandon ourselves to collapse or try to find some peace in saying goodbye.

Accepting and appreciating what our existence has been and trying to close pending issues with loved ones can reconcile us with ourselves and leave an indelible mark on the hearts of others.

Assuming one’s own death

We all know that we are temporary beings. And we are also aware that one day our farewell to life and the people we love will come.

But, since we are fundamentally creative beings, we have made an adjustment so that that feeling of temporality forms part of the background of our existence and does not torment us in our daily living.

In this way, we can live in the here and now, abiding only by the events that life throws at us. The idea of ​​death is far from our consciousness, and it should be so.

But sometimes, some people-for reasons not now come to the case, but never correspond to a finding of death connected with this finitude and then react with anxiety, confusion, dizziness … This is the called noogenic or existential neurosis, or a panic attack, but in both cases they always have to do with life, not death.

Other times, on the other hand, we can be diagnosed with a disease with a poor prognosis, and death and our temporality come to the fore. It is necessary, then, to deal with your message:

The time has come to prepare our bags and take stock of what we have experienced.

The idea of ​​death also comes to us when we reach a certain age, usually from the age of 60. When aging involves a loss of autonomy, of physical and mental faculties, if the person does not learn to accept these changes and enjoy life, they will feel immersed in an emotional process that will disrupt their daily existence.

Grief for one’s life can be differentiated into two categories that are related to age.

1. The mourning of old age itself.
2. The mourning after the announcement of a terminal illness at an age when it is still full of life. The connotations are different.

In the duels due to the progressive deterioration of advanced age, life itself slows down and social messages help to understand that it is time to reap the fruits and calm the spirit.

However, it is paradoxical that, although society is full of activities to stimulate the lives of older people, it is difficult to find a psychological group aimed at assimilating and taking stock of the lives, practically already lived, of those who by age are closing their lives. life cycles.

An activity of this type, far from pushing our elderly to death, could help them find some peace in parting.

Grief in the face of a terminal illness

But what happens to a person when a deadly disease breaks into their life? I remember one case:

A few years ago, I was recommended to have some medical tests. I wasn’t feeling well, but I wasn’t feeling bad either. I decided to collect the evidence alone and opened the envelope, ignoring the warning on it: “Do not open it. Give the sealed envelope to your doctor ”. There, sitting in the car, I read the diagnosis: “Terminal liver cancer.”

I gasped, I noticed how my jaw began to tremble and how the tears ran down my cheeks. How was it possible? In just a few seconds, I had gone from being a healthy woman to dying.

It took me several hours to confirm, thanks to a doctor friend, that fortunately the diagnosis was wrong and the conclusion was different. But the experience, I could say irrational, made me reflect for a long time on how my life would have changed if it had been true.

Unfortunately, the diagnoses are not wrong for other people, so they need to prepare and assimilate that the end of the trip has come.

It is not easy to find the balance between fighting “tooth and nail” to regain health and, at the same time, taking time to reflect and develop a possible farewell.

It is easy to remain unconscious and hyperactive in the first situation, or resignation and helplessness in the second.

There are those who, out of fear of their feelings and / or those of others, decide to play to “ignore” the situation and the problem and embark on a life of bewilderment and confusion: “Well, why should I take care of myself or do something? ! ”.

Fear, above all, drags them to deny the undeniable. There is a need for control and mastery over the inevitable.

Generally, they have dedicated themselves to challenging life feeling that they dominated it. But now they will need to learn to loosen up and stop running away.

It is never too late to feel human and therefore fragile and strong, powerful and weak, a fighter and an acceptor.

At the other extreme, total collapse occurs. Resignation and helplessness plunge the person into such a deep sadness that they abandon the situation prematurely. If each day that passes is usually one day closer to dying, why not give up now to continue rowing in the river of life even if it inevitably takes us to the sea?

In any case, whatever life throws at us, there are always some tasks that can help us to be more at peace. These could be summarized in two:

• Being good with oneself and with what our life has been up to now.
• Go closing pending issues that we have with others, with the people who share our day to day.

Accept how we have lived

Being good with oneself is accepting how we have lived up to now, whatever experiences we have had. Rejoice and be proud of what we have done and achieved, both on a psychological and material level.

And, above all, do not regret what we have not achieved, the dreams that we have not been able to fulfill or what, over time, we think has been wrong or wrong.

Everything, positive or less positive, has helped us to be who we are: that unique and unrepeatable being who has always, and in many ways, enriched the lives of those around him, even though, at times, it has been through suffering.

Because, as hard to believe, even the less than positive moments have helped in some way both those who have received our slights and ourselves.

Close pending matters

Pending issues with others are sometimes the most difficult to address. It is about saying the unsaid, both the pleasant and the unpleasant. It is not good to leave emotions and feelings behind the scenes.

Sometimes it is difficult to say: “I love you, I have always loved you” or “I like to feel close to you.” At other times, what we find difficult to say is: “What I don’t like about you and I have never dared to tell you is that …” or “I have a bad memory of that time when …”.

Let’s say it without acrimony, but with the intensity that the feeling carries.

And finally, we need to accept that the people we love and who love us suffer and feel powerless when they see us badly and do not have the resources to help us.

Helplessness is the worst of human feelings; the suffering of our loved ones is a consequence of their love.

Talking about it among ourselves also relieves and unites beyond the borders of life, creating a bond that lasts forever in the heart.

In reality, none of these tasks is specific to grief. All of them can be part of our daily lives and are too enriching to leave them exclusively for extreme life situations.

They are a good life project to live day to day. So, are we going to settle for leaving them out of our daily lives?