The fear of death, I believe, is the most deeply rooted fear in any human being. Everyone decides to deal with it in a different way, relying on religion or rationality; others spend their lives procrastinating as much as possible the moment when it will inevitably cross their threshold. One might think that a hospital is the place where the fear of death is most realised. But in my years as a doctor I have had the opportunity to see it in many different forms, focusing on facets that I had never stopped to observe.
Everyone shows a different strength when faced with the news of an illness and, therefore, the real possibility of dying. And it is at that moment that you see fear creeping into the life of a person who probably, until that moment, had never believed that one day he would be gone. A shadow that infiltrates and corrodes life deep inside, to the point of shattering all certainty. Whenever I have to deliver bad news, I try to weigh the words, to find the right ones that do not hide the truth but do not kill hope, that keep a light burning in the dark shadow of fear from which I know the patients will not be able to escape, because the terror will rise from the stomach to the eyes, to the head and then go down the legs and leave them petrified at the prospect of losing everything they have, everything they could have had. Young, old, no matter the age, as long as there is someone to leave behind, there will be something to lose.
At this point, is it not trivial to ask how much selfishness there is in the face of the fear of dying? This is perhaps the most surprising and, at the same time, most heartbreaking thing I have seen over the years. No one is afraid to die for themselves, while everyone is afraid of what their death may represent for those left behind. And so, the fear of death is no longer that of ending up in oblivion, but that it is the people we love that will fall to us for the rest of their lives. And it is here that a feeling that, at first, we may perceive as entirely negative, becomes intertwined with its exact opposite: love. As trivial as it may be, love always proves to be the counterbalance to everything we are and everything we value during our existence. And I have never seen a greater fear than that of leaving loved ones.
I have asked myself many times whether it was right to look for a way to erase fear from the lives of the patients I have known and will know, but in the end I have convinced myself that in its most atrocious violence it is one of the most authentic and profound feelings I have ever seen. On the one hand, the fear of dying drags one downwards, projecting those who experience it towards very deep and dark abysses, but on the other it is paradoxically also the float that forces one to keep one's head up, to keep breathing, not for oneself, but for one's loved ones.
There is a scene in the film Donnie Darko where at the extremes of a line, called the '"life line", these two feelings are placed: at one end is love and at the other end is fear. I never fully understood that concept, it seemed a completely wrong juxtaposition. Now that I deal with life and then death on a daily basis, I often think back on it and it seems to me that there is no more just balance. It is still heartbreaking to see that darkness appear in the eyes of my patients, but now, it scares me even more not to see it. Because I have learnt that along with that fear there are many people who are ready to hold them up with one hand and light their path with the other.
Illustration by Gloria Dozio - Acrimònia Studios
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