At the End

Death is defined as the lack of breath in a human being. According to medicine, death is the loss of brain activity (Ross 2008). People often associate death with advance in age, but death occurs any time in life. Preparing to die can be traumatizing both to the patient and the people around him or her (Gould, 2001). Many people have a hard time in dealing with death of a loved one. Often those left behind grieve and get depressed for the loss of the person gone. Research shows that a person knows when he or she is dying (Ross 2008). There are five stages before death of an individual. These are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Five Stages Before Death of an Individual

The first step that one enters before dying is denial. Human beings have not reached the point of accepting death. People often struggle with the thought of dying. Even patients that have been ill for a very long time are not ready to die. When a person is about to die, they struggle with the thought and do not accept that their end has come. A person is not ready to give up and thinks of having more time to live. Therefore, they deny the thought of dying. The second stage is anger. He or she wonders why it has to be him or her that should die and not another. This stage is a mixture of feelings for the subjected person. He or she feels anger on them that are well. The feeling that the chance to live has ended while other are still alive tends to be annoying for them. Such a person feels resentment to all those that are around him or her. This is because the individual has not accepted the fact that he or she is dying.


After anger has settled, the individual begins to bargain with. At this stage, the person will discuss and try to reason for more time to live. At this point the individual has accepted the fact that death is almost. He or she tries to bargain for extension of life. The person may try to make promises to ensure that he or she is given a second chance. Failure to get the desired answers one gets depressed.

The stage of depression is when the individual has given up on the fight for more days to live. He or she feels to have failed and that there is nothing he or she can do to extend life. The last stage is acceptance. At this time, people are not afraid of the treat of death. The individual dying and people around are prepared for death. At this point there are no hard feelings as the person has already accepted fate.

After the death of a loved one, family and friends are left to mourn and bereave the deceased. First survivors go through a moment of shock and denial. This feeling of shock at the sting of death can be very protective (Kubler-Ross and Kessler 2005). This is because a person is trying to shield himself against the pain of losing a loved one. In the second stage, they try to accept the loss and slowly begin to let go of the grief. Finally, the survivors get to a point where they accommodate the loss. At this point, a person will pick what is left and start to move on with life.

These steps are partly true because not all people die in the same manner. The theory applies to people that have ailed for a long time. It does not apply to people that die sudden deaths. In addition the steps have not included pain a patient goes through. Some patients suffer for a long time in pain. Because of pain, they do not think or see death coming. These may die without going through any of the steps (Ross 2008).

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