Monthly Archives: March 2020

cremation services offered in Burtonsville, MD 1

Emotions of the Dying

Before cremations as part of the cremation services offered in Burtonsville, MD, we may be caregiving for a loved one who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness or who has a chronic disease that will eventually lead to death. While we – and much of the online and offline literature – tend to focus on how we feel while our loved ones are dying and after they die, we can often forget to consider what our dying loved one may be experiencing emotionally.

Having insight into the emotions of the dying can help us in how we respond to them. After all, we’re not the only ones experiencing loss. In fact, in a sense, we’re experiencing loss vicariously through them because they are the ones who are actually dying and actually losing their lives.

Thinking from that perspective should give us more patience, more mercy, more compassion, and more gentleness in how we deal with our dying loved ones and how we consistently respond to them, even in the times when they may be very agitated or restless and we are exhausted from trying to keep up with them.

One of the emotions that our dying loved ones may be experiencing is fear. Fear of dying is not uncommon, but if we can pinpoint what aspect of dying our loved ones are afraid of, then we might be able to find ways to ease their fear.

Some people are afraid of dying alone. Some people are afraid of dying away from home. Some people are afraid that death will be painful. Some people are afraid of what happens – or doesn’t happen – after death. Some people are afraid that their lives had no meaning or purpose and that they’ll be forgotten after they die.

Another emotion that our dying loved ones may experience is anger. This emotion may be harder for our loved ones to quantify in a way that’s understandable. Sometimes, people just aren’t ready to die. Other times, people feel like they’ve been cheated out of a full life. If our loved ones did things that brought them to the point of dying, they may be angry at themselves.

Whatever the anger is about, it often gets directed at those closest to our loved ones. There may be no way to soothe that anger, but we can minimize it by not responding to it with anger. That’s a lot easier said than done. But anger breeds anger.

If we feel our anger rising in response to our dying loved one’s anger, then it’s good to give ourselves a timeout. Walk away for a little bit. Breathe deeply. Calm down. But most of all, we should not get angry in return nor should we try to reason with it because those things will just escalate the situation.

Other emotions that our loved ones may be experiencing are guilt and regret. It’s normal when we’re facing death to reflect on our lives. In that reflection, we may find opportunities that we lost and regret that we lost them or things that we should have done or said or that we said or did that we feel guilty about.

We can help our loved ones by, if some of their regrets and guilt are about their relationship with us, is to let them know that we’ve forgiven them and we don’t hold anything against them. They may still have unresolved guilt and regrets, but we should do everything in our power to make sure that those are not related to us.

If you want information about cremation services offered in Burtonsville, MD, you can talk with our expert staff at Donald V. Borgwardt Funeral Home, P.A. You can drop by our funeral home at 4400 Powder Mill Rd., Beltsville, MD, 20705, or you can contact us today at (301) 937-1707.

funeral homes in Burtonsville, MD

Music Can Comfort the Dying

Before funerals at funeral homes in Burtonsville, MD, as we’re caring for loved ones who are coming to the end of their lives, it’s important to think about music and its power even when our lives as ebbing away.

Music is an intrinsic part of our lives. We often talk about the soundtrack of our lives. We might hear a song and be instantly transported back in time to a momentous event or place in our lives. Music is an integral part of life’s most important moments: church services, weddings, proms, parties, and funerals, to name a few.

Music has been a part of human history since the beginning. We see in Genesis 4 the first mention of music with Jubal, who was “the father of all those who play the harp and the flute.” But it’s likely that the very first music ever made was with voices and hands.

Music enhances our lives in ways we don’t even realize. It is fairly well established that music can promote physical, emotional, and spiritual healing. Recent research has shown that music can often reach people who are suffering from dementia when nothing else can.

Music, therefore, is an important component in the transition from life to death. It can provide peace, comfort, and reassurance not only to our loved ones who are dying but also to us as family members.

Music can help decrease levels of stress, restlessness, pain, and anxiety. It can also help our loved ones who are dying to breathe more slowly and deeply, which has a calming effect on the mind and the body.

Although many of us think of music generically in terms of what we and our loved ones like, there is a specific type of music that has been specifically developed to soothe the dying. Although it probably existed before 1973, it was in that year that Therese Schroeder-Sheker gave the method in which this kind of music was played: music thanatology.

It was specifically designed as music to be played on the harp accompanied by singing and is referred to as prescriptive music. Musicians who play prescriptive music are specially trained to use the harp and their voice to modulate in response to the dying person’s changing physiology.

Music therapists can also be used to provide music for people who are dying. Music therapy is designed to decrease physical and mental/emotional pain, but it very much requires that the dying person still be alert and actively participate as much as they are able in the music, including singing along or playing along with another instrument.

One of the newest types of music for the dying is the Threshold Choir. The idea was launched by Kate Munger in 2000 and now has 200 groups around the world participating. These choirs are small, consisting of three or four people at the most, and they gather around the dying person to sing from a selection of 400 approved Threshold songs that focus on care, love, letting go, and going home.

However, all we really need for our loved ones who are dying is the music of their lives. Include the songs they always sang, the ones they loved, the ones that always mattered. Play them soft and low, but loud enough that our loved ones can be comforted by them.

If you’d like to know about funerals at funeral homes in Burtonsville, MD, you can talk with our knowledgeable team at Donald V. Borgwardt Funeral Home, P.A. You can visit our funeral home at 4400 Powder Mill Rd., Beltsville, MD, 20705, or you can call us today at (301) 937-1707.

cremation services offered in Greenbelt, MD

Why Some Deaths Are Not Peaceful

Before cremations as part of the cremation services offered in Greenbelt, MD, most people, if they don’t die suddenly or unexpectedly, who are dying go through a process physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. For some people, the process is very peaceful as they come to the end of their lives. However, for other people, the process is not peaceful

There are many reasons why a death may not be peaceful. Much of this has to do with not actually preparing for death and having it as unfinished business.

One reason why a death may not be peaceful is that the person hasn’t thought about their life ending. Because we live in a society where death is a subject that many people studiously avoid talking about, there are people who live their entire lives without ever having the conscious realization that they will die.

Therefore, when these people get the news that they have a terminal illness or that death is approaching, it’s shocking. They are unable to quite grasp that their time is finite and it will be over soon.

With the knowledge that death is approaching, more questions than answers arise. Since these people haven’t thought about dying, they also haven’t thought about what they want in terms of care at the end of their lives and they haven’t thought about the final note to their lives, which is their funerals.

The stress and anxiety of a terminal illness can make it a lot more difficult to make clear, thoughtful, and logical decisions about end-of-life care and funeral wishes. This leads to a lack of peace.

Another reason why people might not have peaceful deaths is because they haven’t talked to their loved ones about their deaths. They may not have advance care directives in place and they may not have wills or revocable trusts to direct how their estates should be distributed and to whom they should be distributed.

Additionally, there is often unfinished business in close relationships that can lead to a lack of peace at the end of life. There may be rifts that the dying person wants to mend and they may not have time or the person they want to mend them with has no interest in reconciling.

There may be misunderstandings and hard feelings that need to be addressed and resolved and there may be no way or no time to do that when someone receives a terminal diagnosis. There may also be amends that the dying person wants to make with people who matter to them and it may be impossible to do that.

All of these can make dying an unpeaceful process.

Some people just live unhappy lives. If a person has lived unhappily, they will die unhappily. People who have been unhappy all their lives have never learned to accept life as it comes and make the best of it. Instead, they’ve felt that life has been unfair to them or they’ve gotten the short end of the stick from life, and they’ve been unhappy because of that. This can lead to unpeaceful death.

A final reason why people may not experience a peaceful death is that they’ve held on to resentments against other people or they’ve held on to regrets about things that have come and gone and can’t be changed. In short, they’ve not known how to forgive and to get and move on emotionally, which can make dying a very unpeaceful experience.

If you want information about cremation services offered in Greenbelt, MD, you can talk with our expert staff at Donald V. Borgwardt Funeral Home, P.A. You can drop by our funeral home at 4400 Powder Mill Rd., Beltsville, MD, 20705, or you can contact us today at (301) 937-1707.

funeral homes in Greenbelt, MD

Physicians and End-of-Life Conversations

Before funerals at funeral homes in Greenbelt, MD, you may know that you should do advance care planning to make sure your medical wishes are known, that you have a medical power of attorney in place, and that you have a living will in place.

You know that one day you will die. You could be in an accident and die suddenly. Or you could be diagnosed with a terminal illness. Or you could simply die of old age. Regardless, death will come.

Even though you know you should prepare for its inevitability, you may feel like it’s too morbid to think about, talk about, or do anything about. You may think that if you do advance care planning that it’s opening your front door for death to walk in.

While these tend to be how many of us look at advance care planning, we would like to think that physicians – who deal with life and death every day – would be more assertive and more willing to talk with us, their patients, about it.

The reality is, though, that physicians are just as reluctant to discuss advance care planning with their patients – even the patients they suspect or know will be dead within a year.

Why?

One reason is because of the goal of American health care, which is to prolong life. If you’re busy working to prolong lives, then there’s no need to talk about the possibility of the end of life and how that should look. Some doctors have the same fear that their patients do: if they bring up the subject of advance care planning, then their patients will think they’ve given up on them and they know something about their health that they are keeping from their patients.

Because medicine in the United States is focused on keeping people alive for as long as is possible, instruction about how to have advance care planning conversations with patients is not a part of medical school curriculum, nor is it a part of residency programs, where medical students are interacting directly with patients under the guidance and training of doctors and surgeons.

Another reason that many physicians don’t have advance care planning discussions is because they simply don’t have the time. As medicine in America has moved toward the corporate for-profit model, so has its billing model. Time is money.

Much like other professions, such as law and accounting, that use a billing-for-time structure, medicine has now become attached to the clock instead attached to the patient and the patient’s needs. Most physicians have about 15 minutes to spend with each patient. Much of their compensation is tied to how many patients they can see per day and how much of their time can be billed to insurance companies and Medicaid and Medicare.

Fifteen minutes is not enough time to have advance care planning conversations with patients. A physician would have only enough time to bring the subject up and then move on to the next patient. Physicians understand the worry and the anxiety this would give their patients (i.e., “Why did my doctor want to talk about that? Have I got some kind of terminal illness? Am I dying?” would be the logical reaction), so they simply don’t mention it at all.

Advance care planning is important, however, because it gives you control over how you want your life managed medically at the end of your life. It lets you specify how you want the end of your life to look, from a medical standpoint. And it gives you control over how you want your funeral to be.

If you’d like to know about funerals at funeral homes in Greenbelt, MD, you can talk with our knowledgeable team at Donald V. Borgwardt Funeral Home, P.A. You can visit our funeral home at 4400 Powder Mill Rd., Beltsville, MD, 20705, or you can call us today at (301) 937-1707.