DEATH; VERY SACROSANCT IN LIFE
Death is the permanent, irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Brain death is sometimes used as a legal definition of death. The remains of a previously living organism normally begin to decompose shortly after death. Death is an inevitable, universal process that eventually occurs in all living organisms. Death is something no one can escape from. It follows life as surely as night follows day, winter follows autumn or old age follows youth. People make preparations so that they won’t suffer when winter comes. They prepare so they won’t have to suffer in their old age. Yet how few people prepare for the even greater certainty of death!
Modern society has turned its gaze away from this most fundamental issue. For most people, death is something to be feared, to be dreaded, or it is seen as just the absence of life – blankness and void. Death has even come to be considered somehow “unnatural. What is death and what becomes of us after we die? We can try to ignore these questions. Many people do. But if we ignore death, I believe that we are condemned to live a shallow existence, to live “hand to mouth” spiritually. We may assure ourselves that we will somehow deal with death “when the time comes.” Some people keep busily engaged in a constant stream of tasks. In order to avoid thinking about the fundamental issues of life and death. But in such a state of mind, the joys we feel will ultimately be fragile, shadowed by the inescapable presence of death. It is my firm belief that facing the issue of death can help bring real stability, peace and depth to our lives.
SIGNS; Signs of death or strong indications that a warm-blooded animal is no longer alive are:
• Respiratory arrest (no breathing)
• Cardiac arrest (no pulse)
• Brain death (no neuronal activity)
The stages that follow after death are:
• Pallor mortis, paleness which happens in the 15–120 minutes after death
• Algor mortis, the reduction in body temperature following death. This is generally a steady decline until matching ambient temperature
• Rigor mortis, the limbs of the corpse become stiff (Latin rigor) and difficult to move or manipulate
• Livor mortis, a settling of the blood in the lower (dependent) portion of the body
• Putrefaction, the beginning signs of decomposition
• Decomposition, the reduction into simpler forms of matter, accompanied by a strong, unpleasant odor.
• Skeletonization, the end of decomposition, where all soft tissues have decomposed, leaving only the skeleton.
• Fossilization, the natural preservation of the skeletal remains formed over a very long period
CAUSES
; The leading cause of human death in developing countries is infectious disease. The leading causes in developed countries are atherosclerosis (heart disease and stroke), cancer, and other diseases related to obesity and aging. By an extremely wide margin, the largest unifying cause of death in the developed world is biological aging,[3] leading to various complications known as aging-associated diseases. These conditions cause loss of homeostasis, leading to cardiac arrest, causing loss of oxygen and nutrient supply, causing irreversible deterioration of the brain and other tissues. Of the roughly 150,000 people who die each day across the globe, about two thirds die of age-related causes. In industrialized nations, the proportion is much higher, approaching 90%. With improved medical capability, dying has become a condition to be managed. Home deaths, once commonplace, are now rare in the developed world.
In developing nations, inferior sanitary conditions and lack of access to modern medical technology makes death from infectious diseases more common than in developed countries. One such disease is tuberculosis, a bacterial disease which killed 1.8M people in 2015. Malaria causes about 400–900M cases of fever and 1–3M deaths annually AIDS death toll in Africa may reach 90–100M by 2025.
According to Jean Ziegler (United Nations Special Reporter on the Right to Food, 2000 – Mar 2008), mortality due to malnutrition accounted for 58% of the total mortality rate in 2006. Ziegler says worldwide approximately 62M people died from all causes and of those deaths more than 36M died of hunger or diseases due to deficiencies in micronutrients.
Tobacco smoking killed 100 million people worldwide in the 20th century and could kill 1 billion people around the world in the 21st century, a World Health Organization report warned.
Many leading developed world causes of death can be postponed by diet and physical activity, but the accelerating incidence of disease with age still imposes limits on human longevity. The evolutionary cause of aging is, at best, only just beginning to be understood. It has been suggested that direct intervention in the aging process may now be the most effective intervention against major causes of death.
Selye proposed a unified non-specific approach to many causes of death. He demonstrated that stress decreases adaptability of an organism and proposed to describe the adaptability as a special resource, adaptation energy. The animal dies when this resource is exhausted. Selye assumed that the adaptability is a finite supply, presented at birth. Later on, Goldstone proposed the concept of a production or income of adaptation energy which may be stored (up to a limit), as a capital reserve of adaptation. In recent works, adaptation energy is considered as an internal coordinate on the "dominant path" in the model of adaptation. It is demonstrated that oscillations of well-being appear when the reserve of adaptability is almost exhausted.
In 2012, suicide overtook car crashes for leading causes of human injury deaths in the U.S., followed by poisoning, falls and murder. Causes of death are different in different parts of the world. In high-income and middle income countries nearly half up to more than two thirds of all people live beyond the age of 70 and predominantly die of chronic diseases. In low-income countries, where less than one in five of all people reach the age of 70, and more than a third of all deaths are among children under 15, people predominantly die of infectious diseases.
AUTOPSY
An autopsy, also known as a postmortem examination or an obduction, is a medical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a human corpse to determine the cause and manner of a person's death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present. It is usually performed by a specialized medical doctor called a pathologist.
Autopsies are either performed for legal or medical purposes. A forensic autopsy is carried out when the cause of death may be a criminal matter, while a clinical or academic autopsy is performed to find the medical cause of death and is used in cases of unknown or uncertain death, or for research purposes. Autopsies can be further classified into cases where external examination suffices, and those where the body is dissected and an internal examination is conducted. Permission from next of kin may be required for internal autopsy in some cases. Once an internal autopsy is complete the body is generally reconstituted by sewing it back together. Autopsy is important in a medical environment and may shed light on mistakes and help improve practices.
A necropsy, which is not always a medical procedure, was a term previously used to describe an unregulated postmortem examination . In modern times, this term is more commonly associated with the corpses of animals.
RELIGIOUS VIEWS; In Buddhist doctrine and practice, death plays an important role. Awareness of death was what motivated Prince Siddhartha to strive to find the "deathless" and finally to attain enlightenment. In Buddhist doctrine, death functions as a reminder of the value of having been born as a human being. Being reborn as a human being is considered the only state in which one can attain enlightenment. Therefore, death helps remind oneself that one should not take life for granted. The belief in rebirth among Buddhists does not necessarily remove death anxiety, since all existence in the cycle of rebirth is considered filled with suffering, and being reborn many times does not necessarily mean that one progresses..
Death is part of several key Buddhist tenets, such as the Four Noble Truths and dependent origination.
CHRISTIANITY
; While there are different sects of Christianity with different branches of belief; the overarching ideology on death grows from the knowledge of afterlife. Meaning after death the individual will undergo a separation from mortality to immortality; their soul leaves the body entering a realm of spirits. Following this separation of body and spirit (i.e. death)resurrection will occur. Representing the same transformation Jesus Christ embodied after his body was placed in the tomb for three days. Like Him, each person's body will be resurrected reuniting the spirit and body in a perfect form. This process allows the individuals soul to withstand death and transform into life after death.
DEATH IN ISLAM; is the termination of worldly life and the beginning of afterlife. Death is seen as the separation of the soul from the body, and its transfer from this world to the afterlife. Islamic tradition discusses elaborately, as what happens before, during, and after the death, although what exactly happens is not clear and different schools of thought may end up with different conclusions. However, a continuity between all these ideas derived from the basic sources from the Quran and Islamic narratives. One canonical idea is, that an angel of death (Arabic: Malak al-Maut) appears to the dying to take out their souls. The sinners' souls are extracted in the most painful way while the righteous are treated easily.
Another common idea adds that, after the burial, two angels – Munkar and Nakir – come to question the dead in order to test their faith. The righteous believers answer correctly and live in peace and comfort while the sinners and disbelievers fail and punishments ensue. The time period or stage between death and the end of the world[4] is called the life of barzakh. Suicide, euthanasia, and unjust murder as means of death are all prohibited in Islam, and are considered major sins.
Believing in an afterlife is one of the six articles of faith in Islam. The deceased are in an intermediary state, until the great resurrection.
DON’T BE AFRAID, ENJOY YOUR PRESENT
An awareness of death enables us to live each day-each moment-filled with an appreciation for the unique opportunity we have to create something of our time on Earth. I believe that in order to enjoy true happiness, we should live each moment as if it were our last. Today will never return. We may speak of the past or the future, but the only reality we have is that of this present instant. And confronting the reality of death actually enables us to bring unlimited creativity, courage and joy into each instant of our lives.
REFERENCES
1. ^ "death". Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death
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