If our relationship to death was healthy we wouldn't see it as the "bad" that it isn't, we would see it as the natural that it is.
Death is the intimate partner, the twin flame of life. Death is to life, what night is to day. Life flows into death, which flows into life, which flows into death and on and on and on. Without death there is no life.
From the very minute we are life, we embark on the journey to death.
So then, how did we arrive at this place in our culture that death, and by proxy aging, are feared, hated, fought against tooth and nail instead of accepted, even embraced, as the natural course of life that has always been and always will be?
Today, I saw a 17 year old female patient who is neurologically devastated. She had cardiopulmonary arrest 2 months ago and required intubation and chest compressions to keep her "alive."
She cannot walk, cannot talk, cannot eat from her mouth, and is entirely dependent on her parents for every single aspect of her care, from eating to toileting. She is not my child. I don't know what that feels like or what I would do if I was the parent of a child like her.
I know that I am in a place of deep privilege: this is a theoretical scenario for me, not a real one. I'd like to think that what I would do is relinquish the steering wheel to the wisdom of life-universe-creator.
Sometimes, life is telling us it is time to die. I hope for a cultural paradigm shift in which we are reacquainted with the voice of life-universe-creator and trust in it's infinite wisdom, which is much deeper, wider, and knowing than we will ever be.
Death is not bad. It is all around us. Leaves are dying and turning into humus for new life to feed on. The old of all species (trees, tigers, fish, algae) are dying and making room for the new, who will also become old and repeat this cycle over and over and over. Mountains and rock, as indomitable and permanent as they seem, even they through their love affair with wind and water, soften into rounded hills then sand. Even the mighty, seemingly invincible, stars are dying, and one day our sun will too.
Death is not the opposite of Life. Death is the infinite partner of Life. It is ying/yang, low tide/high tide, night/day, hot/cold, pain/joy, matter/anti-matter, light/dark.