Microsoft Word Elisabeth Kubler-Ross On Death And Dying doc

We have found two ways of achieving this goal more easily. One kind of patient will achieve it 
with little if any help from the environment-except a silent understanding and no interference. This 
is the older patient who feels at the end of his life, who has worked and suffered, raised his children 
and completed his tasks. He will have found meaning in his life and has a sense of contentment 
when he looks back at his years of work. 
 
Others, less fortunate ones, may reach a similar state of body and mind when they are given enough 
time to prepare for their death. They will need more help and understanding from the 
 
(P106) 
 
environment as they struggle through all the previously described stages. We have seen the 
majority of our patients die in the stage of acceptance, an existence without fear and despair. It is 
perhaps best compared with what Bettelheim describes about early infancy: "Indeed it was an age 
when nothing was asked of us and all that we wanted was given. Psychoanalysis views earliest 
infancy as a time of passivity, an age of primary narcissism when we experience the self as being 
all." 
 
And so, maybe at the end of our days, when we have worked and given, enjoyed ourselves and 
suffered, we are going back to the stage that we started out with and the circle of life is closed. 
 
The following two interviews are examples of husband and wife attempting to reach the stage of 
acceptance. 
 
Dr. G., a dentist and father of a twenty-four-year-old son, was a deeply religious man. We have 
used his example in Chapter IV on anger, when the question is raised, "Why me?" and he 
remembered old George and wondered why that man's life could not be taken instead of his. In 
spite of the picture of acceptance that he presented during the interview, he also demonstrates the 
aspect of hope. He was intellectually quite aware of the state of his malignancy and as a 
professional man realized the slim chances of continuing to work. Yet he was unwilling or unable 
to consider the closing of his office until briefly before this interview. He maintained an office girl 
to accept his calls and sustained the hope that the Lord might repeat an incident that happened to 
him during the war years when he was shot at at a close distance and missed "being shot from 
twenty feet away and the person misses you, you know that there is some other power than the fact 
that you are a god dodger or whatever." 
 
DOCTOR: Can you tell us how long you have been in the hospital 1  and what reasons brought you 
here? 
 
PATIENT: Yes. I am a dentist as you probably know and have 
 
been practicing for quite a number of years. In the last part of June, I experienced this sudden pain 
that I realized was unusual and I had X-rays immediately and the 7th of July of this year I was 
operated on for the first time. 
 
DOCTOR: In 1966? 
 

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PATIENT: In 1966, yes. And I realized that there was ninety percent chance that it was malignant 
but this was a slight consideration on my part since this was my first episode and my first feeling of 
any kind of pain. I came through the operation in very good shape, recovered remarkably and then 
had a subsequent bowel blockage and had to go back in for further surgery on the 14th of 
September. And from the 27th of October I was not happy with my progress. My wife got in touch 
with a doctor here and we came here. So I have been constantly in treatment since the 27th of 
October. This covers my hospitalization about as well as I can summarize it. 
 
DOCTOR: At what time of this illness did you know what you actually had? 
 
PATIENT: I actually knew that it was very possibly a malignancy immediately after seeing the X-
rays because a growth in this particular area is ninety percent malignant. But as I said, it didn't 
occur to me that it would be very serious and I was getting on so well. Now the doctor did not tell 
me, but they did tell the family the seriousness of the condition as soon as they were out of surgery. 
And it was a short time later I was riding to a town nearby with my son. We have always been a 
closely knit family and we'd got to talking about my general condition and he said, "Has Mom ever 
told you what you really have?" I said no, she hasn't. And so I know it wrenched him deeply but he 
told me that when they did their first surgery it was not only malignant but it was metastatic and it 
covered all the organs of the body with the exception of the liver and the spleen, which was 
fortunate. It was inoperable and I had begun to suspect this. My boy came to know the Lord when 
he was ten years old and through the years we had wanted to share some of his experience of the 
lard, as he matured and went away to college. This experience had matured him tremendously. 
 
DOCTOR: How old is he now? 
 
PATIENT: He will be twenty-four Sunday. I realized the depth of his maturity after our 
conversation. 
 
DOCTOR: How did you react to your son telling you that? 
 
PATIENT: Well, to be very frank, I had more or less suspected 
 
(P108) 
 
this, due to several things that I had noticed. I am not completely without knowledge myself; I have 
been associated with a hospital for twenty years, been on the hospital staff that long, and I 
understand these things. At that time he also told me that the assisting surgeon told my wife that I 
had from four to fourteen months to live. I had felt nothing. I've been at complete peace with my 
soul since I found this out. I've had no period of depression. I suppose most anybody in my position 
would look at somebody else and say, well, why couldn't it have been him. And this has crossed my 
mind several times. But it is only a fleeting passage. I remember once we went down to the office 
to pick up the mail and an old man came down the street who I have known ever since I was a little 
kid. He is eighty-two years old, and he is of no earthly use as far as we mortals can tell. He's 
rheumatic, he's a cripple, he's dirty, just not the type of a person you would like to be. And the 
thought hit very strongly, now why couldn't it have been old George instead of me. But this hasn't 
been a major consideration. This has possibly been the only thing that I have thought of. I do look 

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