Microsoft Word Elisabeth Kubler-Ross On Death And Dying doc

CHAPLAIN: Just one, one fact. If I hear correctly you are saying you are stronger now in your 
faith and your ability to accept your illness than when you started. This has come out of it. 
 
PATIENT: Well, no. I just mean this in terms of my faith outside my illness. But it isn't the illness, 
it was M. challenging my faith, without even meaning to. 
 
DOCTOR: It's her own now and not something that somebody else taught her. 
 
CHAPLAIN: It came from the relationship. 
 
PATIENT: It came here. It happened here, right here in this hospital. So, I mean I worked it out 
these years and I've grown in it. So now I really understand what faith and trust is. Where before I 
was always groping to understand it more clearly. And even as I know more and that, it doesn't 
change the fact that there's so much more I see and like. I say to M., "If there isn't a God, I've 
nothing to lose, but if there is I'm worshiping him as he deserved, in the sense as much as I can 
now." Whereas before it was somebody else's, an automaton, the result of my education and that. I 
wasn't-I wasn't worshiping God. I thought I was, but believe me, if anyone had said I didn't believe 
in God I would have been insulted. But I see the difference now. 
 
CHAPLAIN: You had some other questions? 
 
DOCTOR: Yes, I have, but I think we have to finish in about five minutes. But maybe we can 
continue this another time. 
 
PATIENT: I want to tell you something one patient said to me. "Don't come in and tell me this is 
God's will for me." Now I had never before heard anyone resent this remark. She was a twenty-
seven-year-old mother who was leaving three children. "I hate it when somebody else tells me this. 
I know that but you're living in this pain. Nobody can put on frosting when you are hurting." It's 
much better at that time to say something like "You're hurting," to feel like somebody understands 
what you are going through than to ignore this and add something. When you are better, then it's 
okay. Another thing I can say, people cannot use the word cancer. It seems like this word still 
draws pain. 
 
DOCTOR: There are other words like that, too. 
 
PATIENT: But to many, much more than to me. I think that in many ways it has been a kind 
disease, I have gained much from it. I have met many friends, many people. I don't know if heart 
disease or diabetes is more acceptable. I look down the hall and I'm glad for what I've got, instead 
of what I haven't got. I don't begrudge other people. But when one is very sick, one doesn't think of 
any of these things. One just waits to see if people are going to hurt or help. 
 
DOCTOR: What kind of a girl were you? When you were a little girl, what made you become a 
nun? Was this a family plan or something? 
 
PATIENT: I was the only one in the family. We were ten children, five boys and five girls. I never 
remember not wanting to be a nun. But sometimes, you know, since I've studied more psychology, 
I wonder if it was getting me somewhere where I would stand out. Where I was so different from 

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my sisters who  were so acceptable to my family. My mother-they were good housekeepers and 
that, and I liked books and things like that much better. But I would say that over the years I don't 
believe this was true. Sometimes when I don't want to be a nun, today, because it's so darn hard, I 
remember that if God had wanted me to, I can accept this as being God's will. He would in some 
way or other have shown me a different way years before. And this too, I went on thinking-I had 
thought this all my life and this just was the only thing and I also can think now that I would have 
been a good mother and a good wife. Where at that time I thought this was the only thing that I 
should or could do. I mean it was not compulsion because I did it freely, but I didn't understand. I 
was thirteen when I went and I didn't make vows until I was twenty, meaning I had all that time and 
then six more years to decide that, and , final vows now many years. And I say that just like in 
marriage, it's up to you. You either accept or you reject. You know, you can make it more full for 
yourself. 
 
DOCTOR: Do you still have your mother? 
 
PATIENT: Yes, I do. 
 
DOCTOR: What kind of woman is she? 
 
PATIENT: My father and mother both came as emigrants from XY. My mother learned the 
language on her own. She is a very warm person. I think she did not understand my father very 
 
 
well. He was an artist and he was a good salesman and she was a very retiring, reserved person. 
Now I realize that she must have had a sense of insecurity. She placed a great value on being 
reserved and that and so being outgoing was kind of looked down upon in our family. And I had a 
tendency for that. Because I wanted to go and do things where my sisters liked to stay home and 
embroider and my mother was real satisfied with them. I joined different clubs and that. And they 
tell me now that I am an introvert. I found it hard all my life 
 
DOCTOR: I don't think you are an introvert. 
 
PATIENT: Well, they just told me that about two weeks ago. I do not often find a person who can 
talk to me beyond ordinary conversation. There are so many things I am interested in. I never had 
anyone to share it with. And when you find this often in a group and you're sitting at a table with a 
bookkeeper and someone, and many of our Sisters have not had the opportunity to have the 
education that I have, and they kind of, I think, resent it. Meaning they think you think you are 
superior to them. So right away if you meet a person like that, you shut up, meaning you are not 
going to give them any ammunition to think that. Education makes you humble, it doesn't make you 
proud. And I'm not going to change my language. Meaning if I can use the word relevant, I'm not 
going to use something more simple. And if they think this is big talk, it's not. I can talk as simple 
to a child as anybody else can, but I'm not going to change my conversation to suit each person. But 
there was a time when I wished I could. Meaning, I had to become what everyone wanted me to be. 
Now I don't anymore. Now they have to learn to accept me, too. I am kind of demanding to them or 
I'm just going to kind of wait peacefully for it, it's not going to tear me apart. People are angry at 
me and yet they made themselves angry. I didn't necessarily make them angry. 
 

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