Dying - Death - Grief
When we speak about death, we are always also speaking about life — about what remains, and about what is missing. It is rarely the grand moments that stay with us. More often, it is the small things that burn themselves into memory: a wordplay that suddenly resurfaces, a situation in everyday life where someone is missing who was always there before. With people, it is often language that returns. With animals, it is ritual. The cat that once came reliably for medication, whose absence leaves behind a silence that is almost unbearable. The evenings when someone used to come for warmth and closeness, and now there is only the memory of a heat that no longer exists. Sometimes it is simply the character of a living being — so distinct, so present — that remains, even when the physical presence is gone.
Pain meets loss, and in the end it hardly matters whether we are grieving a human being or a beloved animal. The question is always the same: What could I have said? What could I have done? And yet, if one listens honestly inward, something else often appears — a form of certainty. The certainty that the important things were said. That what needed to be done was done. Trust between living beings does not fall from the sky. It is built together, over time, through presence and attention. And from that grows something that might be called gratitude: the feeling of having been seen — truly seen. That feeling can be kept, even when the one who offered it is no longer there.
Our society has developed a peculiar relationship with death. We silence it — a paradox, when one thinks about it. And this silencing ensures that many important words never find their way out. People feel abnormal for thinking about death, even though nothing is more normal than confronting finitude. Some build walls thick enough to keep it all at a distance. Others experience fear and grief in forms that do not overwhelm them. That does not mean something is wrong with them. It only means that each person finds their own way of dealing with what cannot be grasped.
There is a distinctly human pressure we place on ourselves — the idea that we must use time while it is still there, that we must find the right words before it is too late. But what good is an imaginary hammer when we want to drive a nail into the wall? Nothing. Thoughts without enactment remain abstract, and the pressure we create rarely helps. Sometimes things come at their own time, when we are actually able to use them. A letter that is never sent can still bring clarity. Unfinished sentence fragments are often more important than perfectly composed paragraphs, because they are honest. They show how difficult it is to gather thoughts into words that cannot simply be pushed aside.
Death is not the end, even when it feels that way. It becomes easier to speak with those who have died when we accept that what remains is what was good — how important they were. That may be a patient one came to know over time, family members, friends, animals. Faith, in whatever form it appears, can be a support here. Not institutionalised faith, not the church or the dusty Bible on a shelf, but something deeper, something anchored. The attempt to have an answer for everything often leads us astray, thinking everything to pieces. But when something is hard to bear, faith — in God, in the good in people, in something greater — can give wings that allow us to see and live the positive.
Hollywood has taught us that dying must always be heavy with meaning, full of great words and dramatic farewells. But perhaps it does not need that. There is strength in simplicity and brevity, if one is able to see it. The question of what one should have said is often a question one asks oneself. But perhaps it would be more healing to ask what matters to the other person, whether there is something on their heart. It takes courage to ask about unspoken things, about old wounds that may have long faded. It is a risk, because not everyone can handle such questions. Yet sometimes that very question underlines how important someone is.
The emptiness left behind by death is real. The feeling that there are important things for which no words can be found is not unusual. People make mistakes, and there is strength in being honest about that. There are different ways of dealing with it — together with the dying person, or alone. And perhaps it is not so important whether it is faith or not. Perhaps it is more important to allow thoughts to be free, without immediately judging them. Leaving a pause between a thought and its evaluation can open a new, unfamiliar, but beautiful world.
Allowing oneself to be as one is may be the most important thing of all. If one is not able to find the right words now, if one cannot yet see what is there to be seen, that is not a failure that weighs forever. It makes us human — capable of perceiving feelings, of granting people the importance they deserve. Heart and mind will eventually cry out something that is unbearably difficult to endure and for which there is no preparation. But that is precisely what makes us human. It answers the question of how any of this can be endured. It is not about being perfectly prepared. It is about keeping the heart open. Then every storm can be weathered. Then what truly matters remains — and that is more than enough.
Thank you, Claude, for finding the right words in my chaos.
Written on 03 January 2026 at 16:05. © 2026 Whisper7. All rights reserved.