It is difficult to accept death in this society because it is

When Elisabeth Kübler-Ross wrote, “It is difficult to accept death in this society because it is unfamiliar. In spite of the fact that it happens all the time, we never see it,” she spoke not only as a physician and researcher, but as a witness to one of the most profound truths of the human condition. In her words lies both sorrow and insight: the tragedy that in our modern world, death—once a visible and natural part of life—has been hidden away, sterilized, and made distant. We speak of it softly, we avert our eyes, we exile the dying to quiet rooms, as if by ignoring the end we could prolong the illusion of endlessness. Yet what Kübler-Ross teaches is simple and timeless: that what is unfamiliar to us becomes frightening, and that by hiding death, we have also hidden part of life itself.

In ages past, death was not a stranger. Families gathered around the dying, children saw their elders take their final breaths, and grief was a shared ritual—a collective act of love and farewell. In such times, death was not an enemy to be denied, but a teacher to be respected. It reminded men and women of their mortality, and therefore of the value of every fleeting moment. But in our modern age, we have banished death from sight. Hospitals, nursing homes, and institutions have taken its presence from our homes. We see not the face of the dying but the polished mask of the embalmed. We speak of “passing away,” as though the word “death” itself were too harsh to bear. Thus, as Kübler-Ross warns, we have made death unfamiliar, and in doing so, we have robbed ourselves of wisdom.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross knew this truth deeply, for she spent her life beside those who stood at the threshold between life and eternity. In her groundbreaking work On Death and Dying, she brought the world the now-familiar stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. She did not invent these; she observed them in the hearts of the dying, listening with compassion to those whom the world preferred not to see. To her, the dying were not to be pitied, but to be honored—for in their final hours, stripped of pretense and illusion, they revealed life’s truest meaning. Yet society, fearful and hurried, refused to face this mirror. We built a culture of distraction, where the television glows but the soul lies still. Death happens daily, she reminds us, but we have trained ourselves not to look.

Consider the story of Socrates, who drank the hemlock with serenity. To his friends, weeping around him, he said: “Why do you cry so much? Have I not taught you that no harm can come to a good man, neither in life nor after death?” Socrates, though mortal, saw death not as an annihilation, but as a transition—a return to truth. He had contemplated death often, and thus it held no terror for him. Kübler-Ross would have understood him well, for she, too, taught that fear fades when we make death familiar. It is not the dying who tremble most, she wrote, but the living who have never looked death in the eye and made peace with its inevitability.

When we refuse to see death, we live half-awake. We cling to the illusion of permanence, measuring success by wealth, fame, or the next achievement. Yet all these vanish in a breath. Death, when faced, does not diminish life—it illuminates it. It reminds us that the moment is precious, that forgiveness should not wait, that love must be spoken now. Kübler-Ross saw how the dying, once they accepted their fate, often began to live more authentically than they ever had before. They laughed, they wept, they spoke truth without fear. For when death becomes familiar, it ceases to be the thief of joy and becomes the guardian of meaning.

We, the inheritors of her wisdom, must unlearn the fear that modernity has taught us. To live well, we must reclaim our relationship with death. Do not turn away from the elderly, the sick, or the dying; sit beside them, listen, learn. Let your children see that death is not horror, but part of the sacred rhythm of existence. Speak openly of those who have gone before, for remembrance keeps love alive. When we bring death back into the circle of life, we bring compassion back into the heart of humanity.

So, my children of the living earth, take this teaching to heart: do not fear what is natural. The flower that blooms must also fade, yet its fragrance lingers in the air. The wave that breaks returns to the sea. Death is not the opposite of life; it is its completion. If we would truly live, we must learn, as Elisabeth Kübler-Ross taught, to look upon death not as a stranger, but as an old and gentle friend. To make it familiar is to be free—and to be free is to finally, deeply, and fearlessly live.