Elisa Barato

There is still a taboo in our society, a taboo that resists, as it may seem that there is nothing to hide and be afraid of that. The body has been largely cleared through customs by the shame of being and existence, the pleasure, once a source of many feelings of guilt, he became the first value on which to build life in general and see how many things we all concede that once would been judged negatively. This leads to a more widespread freedom of life, but the taboo of death still stands. At this dreadful word "death" approach other words such as: pain, loss, abandonment, fear ... all that no one wants to understand concepts in their own living. And that's why we die alone in hospitals often anonymous, with no one next door. In the Eastern tradition, death is conceived as a passage of life that is eternal. Death is only one dimension left, the earthly material, but the journey continues ...

It is not easy for our materialistic Western mind to understand this point of view, but to die with dignity is a growing need and many are questioning on topics such as living wills and respect for the wishes of the dying. Knowing how to die well means being able to live well, because the death occurs during the good life. Talking about death is therefore speak of life, how we live, what we are giving quality of life, what values ​​do we bring. In my experience accompanying the terminally ill have seen the importance of helping to make a passage aware that not only have a palliative care and qualified medical, but also to reflect together on the mystery of existence and death. This spiritual dimension is perhaps the greatest help and requested by the patient and if we start in life to think about death, perhaps we would arrive at that special moment with more ability to understand what it really is: a moment of transition to a different state of consciousness, a Step Light, also the title of the book by Marie De Hannezel (The Bright Passage, the fine art of dying, and. Rizzoli) that says: "The challenge of the times to come is perhaps to create, within a secular world and intends to remain so, a humanism open, where the transcendent and the sacred have a place in people's hearts, the hearts of human beings. "