This is How We Leave Our Body, How We Leave This World…

Barbara Karnes

We go through labor to enter this world AND we go through labor to leave it. Most of us don’t know this. When we see our special person struggling, we, the watchers, think something pathological is happening or we think the professionals are not doing enough to provide proper care.

In reality, nothing bad is happening. It is sad — but not bad. This is how we leave our body, how we leave this world.

Dying is not pretty. It is often messy, loud, and very scary for us watchers. Because we only have tv and the movies as our guide on how people die, we are not prepared for its ugliness. Add our emotions of sadness to what we see and we end up with a distorted memory of our experience. We end up with misconceptions of what was happening.

My booklets go into detail but here are a few of the natural things people do in the moments before death:

* The person will not be aware of their surroundings 
* Their eyes will be partially open but not focused
* There will be congestion, difficulty breathing, or gaping movements almost like a fish breathing out of water
* Involuntary urination and bowel movements
* Restlessness and agitation OR stillness
* The closer to death they are, generally the slower breathing becomes
* Breathing will appear to stop, but then there can be two or three long, spaced out breaths
* I have seen a tear, but not as often as you might think

These are some of the things you are most likely to see during the last moments before life leaves a body. During this time we watch, we love, we cry, we say goodbye. A dying loved one is scary but if we know what to expect, we can let go of our fear that something bad is happening and support our special person as they leave this life.