Does It Matter How A Person Dies?

I ran across this post I wrote when my mother was dying. Sudden Death vs Death With Ceremony.  Her death was stark!

Recently, I went to the funeral of a man who died, seemingly by accident. He was joker type person. He was funny and theatrical. He was the over-the-top, flirty member of a conservative family. Boy do they miss him.

I was talking to his sister-in-law; the family is close. She said it was awful not having him around but what pissed her off the most, was his manner of death. “I just can’t believe he was that, STUPID,” she said. Because the man died by stupid accident, see?

This is not something most people would mention. Few think about being careful so they don’t die for a stupid reason, leaving their family to grieve and live with the loss.

Do you think about things like this? It seems the manner in which a person dies matters tremendously to the people left behind.

Consider what families of those sexually assaulted and murdered go through.  It’s enough to get you really mad.

In fact, I don’t think we’re near mad enough over things like this.

Does it matter how a person dies?

38 thoughts on “Does It Matter How A Person Dies?”

  1. Yes, it matters very much.
    It seems few people die peacefully and painlessly (?) of natural causes at a late age.
    Many people die from diseases that might’ve or might not have been avoided, which gives regrets.
    Fast and unexpectd deaths shock and long painful ones are horrible.
    Accidental death is definitely awful, you wonder why, why that person, in that way, at that time, and no answer at all. Wondering if knowing the why of a death even helps.
    Conditions of death can be pretty bad too.
    I was think of my mother’s death yesterday. In a horrible “dying home”, the most absolute example of everything she hated. She was signed in at 11 am, and died at 11:30 pm. As far as I’m concerned, that was 12 1/2 hours too much. A nighmare. Wish it had been otherwise and it continues to haunt me.

  2. Beginnings and endings have always been abrupt (Aries 8th). I would rather go doing something heroic (Mars/Leo) than maybe a case of road rage victim or foolish accident. Yes, it matters very much because death is the punctuation point at the end of our physical life. I want mine to be an exclamation point.

  3. You know what haunts me? It’s the fact that both my parents who died 9 years apart, basically died alone (without me being around!!!) My dad died of heart and lung problems after a long hospital stay. I was not able to go from Oklahoma to Florida to be there. My mother died from heart failure and had Alzheimer’s for years and had been put in a nursing home. Again, I was not there. I was only grateful a cousin of mine, with whom I was not actually close, took care of affairs. She buried my dad’s ashes in her back yard. Then when my mom went, this cousin did manage to mail me my mom’s ashes but said she didn’t “remember” where in her yard my dad’s ashes were. So…I’m also very upset about other things. My parents were not “well off”, but there were certain “heirlooms” that I know were there. Said cousin said she would ship them to me; I’m still waiting after 14 years. No photos, no mementos, nothing! Well, except for their wedding rings which ended up with my oldest son ended up with, he felt “entitled”, being he was my parents’ “favorite”. I don’t like regrets, but this whole situation has hung like a huge dark cloud over me. I have another “death” story that after 2 years still chases over my mind and my emotions. I know I have to “let go” of all this, but it is next to impossible for me. All three haunt me!!!

    1. That’s why it’s so tragic when a young person dies. They have had time yet to leave their mark on the world. Well I guess some have but the family left behind will always feel a deeper sense of loss over never having seen what all their loved one could have done.

  4. It’s my understanding that the zodiac sign of the 6H rules the initial causes of a fatal illness and the zodiac sign of the 8H rules the ultimate cause of death. Also, factor in all aspects of the planets residing in the 6H and 8H and their rulers. A step further includes reviewing your progressed chart and current lunar return charts at the time of death. Fascinating studies – that’s my 8H Sun talking! lol

    1. 6th house Jupiter/Pisces opposed by Pluto and Uranus and empty Aries 8th house. Sounds interesting though probably it’s way more complicated, right? I agree – fascinating. I always want to peek behind the curtain.

  5. I have a friend who lost her husband, recently. She was driving, talking to him on the phone. The line went dead. The State Patrol called her back a few minutes later…he has died and driven off the road.

    No clue how long it takes to come to terms with something like this. The stuff I’ve written recently about being aware of mortality, matters!

    https://elsaelsa.com/forum/astrology/memento-mori/

      1. Yes. But if she does not move beyond being, “that poor lady”, she’s going to be,”that poor lady” for the rest of her life.

        It’s a conundrum.

        1. Also, watching your loved one waste away is no picnic, either. This man was died in a split second…while chatting with the woman he loved.

          He’s also told her recently, how much she meant to him. You can do a lot worse, when it comes to dying. But I do understand what you mean, GTO. I think everyone is telling her, you poor lady. So of course, I move to balance. Which she appreciates, because really, she’s not getting anywhere. And ultimately she wants to.

          1. Agreed. I’m thinking of the circumstances and how people blame themselves needlessly rehashing those last moments. My Dad finally went to the hospital and passed there quickly but Mom keeps wondering if she should have taken him because he was very upset at going. It’s needless rehashing of what cannot be changed. My mom’s neighbor is a retired nurse who has taken care of her invalid husband for years. With the problems he’s got, I don’t understand how he holds on. This woman has had a heavy burden. I think when he’s gone it will be just as difficult for her to pick up as it has been for my mom. I feel like my mom has been the luckier of the two.

  6. anonymoushermit

    Of course. I would rather have a friend who dies with me at old age, rather than, I’m not trying to be graphic, or strong, but old age is better than being pierced with a knife? it just sounds so tragic and brutal.

  7. As bad as it is, I believe that no matter how you die, you were destined to die at that time. I am a fatalist and even when the most terrible things happen to a person, there is something to be learned from it. I have known of people who were murdered, not close personally, but on the outer fringes of my circles and I have had people die suddenly and others die after long bouts with cancer, etc. My Grandmother told me that one never knows what they will have to suffer before the die and that is the truth.

  8. Which also ties into tragedies. When tragedies happen, it seems to bring people closer together to help one another. This is my answer to anyone who asks why it has to happen.

  9. Since no one has a choice in how they die, unless they kill themselves, I don’t think its right to say it matters how someone dies… As if how someone dies changes how you feel about them after they are gone. I don’t think how someone dies, changes anything with regard to how the person was or is regarded during life…at least it shouldn’t.

    How someone dies can be characteristic of someone’s life though. Say someone was always a risk taker…drove too fast…was careless…well it wouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise if they got into an accident and died.

    I think it’s pretty uncanny how you can often see the probable manner of death in a natal chart. Usually though, only after the fact, it seems so glaringly obvious. Same for death transits….obvious after the fact.

    I’m sort of a fatalist- I believe everyone’s death is sort of predetermined… But I think its possible we have some form of control over when we physically die. I’ve read something about people have several death windows throughout our lives, and our higher selves choose if and when it’s ready to take one. Or that the higher self can choose to take a metaphorical death instead of a physical one.

    I don’t know. No one knows. There’s so much that is always going to remain unknown. There is so much we can’t comprehend about life/death and the nature of the universe…free will/fate… This universe is quite mysterious and unfathomable.

    1. When you’re often able to see the manner of death in the natal chart, then doesn’t that mean that how a person dies should matter? Because if it really doesn’t matter, then why would it already be shown in the natal chart?
      .
      The death windows are the transits, which would make a good astrological death chart. Can be true or ‘wishful’ thinking of some astrologers, depending on what they overlook.

        1. I got your point. At least I hope so. But it regarded only how somebody is perceived by other people? You’d simply prefer not to see the manner of death in a natal chart?

          1. Well, in a sense, I guess it matters in that the way we die can affect others, for example, from someone who dies doing something heroic, we can learn what courage means to us. Through someone’s death through violence, we could, for instance, become inspired to be an advocate for something.

            I meant I didn’t think it mattered as far as it doesn’t make a difference in the way the person themselves should be regarded after death when put in the context of their whole life on earth. I think their life matters more. There are exceptions. Some people are remembered for their deaths only.

            But about natal charts and predicting death…I don’t know if it can be done.

            1. The renaissance astrologers were quite good in predicting death, so I think that it can be done. But the art is lost. Only the manner of death is more simple to see because you need only to look at the Eighth house. Of course in the context of the whole life, it is the same Eighth house, which is there since the time of birth. So death indeed shouldn’t change anything. My only point is: why is there an Eighth house since the time of birth if it wouldn’t matter in at least some way? It should matter because it is there. That’s all of my point already.

              1. I dunno…you could just say everything matters, even nothing matters, because there would be no nothing if there wasn’t an everything. Pshhhh. I think it matters but I don’t think it matters for the reasons and in the context I stated above.

  10. I believe, like lasirena who wrote above, that there are ‘death windows’ I think this is a possibility. Over the last two years I have had two car crashes, a near miss with an electrical cable in the woods, then my husband’s car was hit by a moose (which I kind of predicted as I told him drive home slowly and he did) – car was a wreck but he came out unscathed. This happened as I was in hopsital with my son for leukhemia. The risk of death was all around. During this time I was in hospital I reflected deeply, prayed a lot. (transits were uranus conjunct moon /saturn square merc EXACT / pluto conjunct merc square moon//saturn across 8 and 12 houses). I have changed my life dramatically. I had been living incorrectly, putting energy into the wrong things and the wrong people. I believe it was change or die. I’m not saying this is the same for everyone but this was the case for me. Since we’ve made the changes our life is at peace, and we are progressing in a new way. My son is out of hopital now too and recovering well. So I think we can have some control over how we die, the timing, there are signs. I see this in others’ lives too. To us it may seem like a shock when a person dies suddenly in an ‘accident’ but the signs (warnings) may have been visible to the person who dies well before.

  11. My best friend was killed on my 33rd birthday by a boyfriend that I told her was a creep long before she started dating him. He passed it off as suicide, and got away with it. I thought she killed herself because when I berated him for his behavior about a month before her death, and I thought he might have misrepresented the reason for my visit to his business!
    I was devastated, as she was my only true female friend, and she was a lovely, lovely woman with her whole life in front of her! I cried whenever I thought her name, and that was every year for months at a time before and after my birthday. It was 7 years before I had a birthday without it reminding me of her. I thanked God.
    A few years ago I asked a psychic how she was (since suicide was a sin). She replied that my friend was saying , “Fake, fake, fake”, and asked if she had a boyfriend who was a sexual pervert. Amazing. But her death was the hardest thing I have ever been through, and that is saying a lot.

  12. My ex-husband and I had not really been talking as my son went to live with him and my daughter with me. My son dropped out of school and I was not notified and was so mad that my ex allowed this to happen. Well this November my husband was shoot and killed at his home. My son was not home and has been staying at a friends house. Now my children have to live with the way he died of course it mad the news and I have a little guilt of being so mad at him.
    I just think my poor kids and how when people ask about their father and how they have to relive it. It was violent and cruel. If he died of a heart attack or a natural cause there would be sadness and not the feeling of being a victim. Someone took their father. Not it was his time.

  13. I do *not* believe that we have a built-in expiry date. So, I disbelieve that the day of our death can be predicted, e.g. with an astrology chart. (There are always so many alternate versions, for interpretations.)
    That said, it’s obvious to me that there are times when staying alive requires paying close attention, and a continuing intent to carry on (Mercury, & for some reason, Jupiter also. How we use them, that is.)
    In answer to the question, I’ve been part of many conversations on this topic – everyone involved agreed with the premise that the circumstances of dying matter!

  14. I think about the deaths of large groups of people all at once. Awful things, like war. War, to me, is stupid unless absolutely necessary. I would be furious to lose someone – or myself! – to war.

    A friend of mine died by lightning strike. Too young. It was random and absurd in one sense, and awful in another, and a multitude of other things. Mostly unfair and horribly tragic.

  15. Avatar
    startstatic97

    My only criteria of a “good” death is whether the person suffered, and if they died the way they wanted to, if they had a preference.
    Personally I’d rather die suddenly in an accident doing something I love (some extreme sports, for example) being around middle-age, than peacefully at a very old age. Even being a child I used to have those irrational thoughts that I won’t wake up if I fall asleep from time to time – I feel like it would be a nightmare to go to sleep never knowing if it’s not your last time; there’s nothing “peaceful” about that for me.

  16. It matters most how a person lived. I think Elsa’s friend who lost their bil to a “stupid” accident was actually just angry about all the grief this brings. What accident isn’t stupid? Grief brings up unhealed loss and other difficult emotions. The void left with the fun-loving guy is gone… what if he was taking the death window? -New concept to me that I learned about here but I feel is true.
    My dad died in an uncharacteristic adventure accident and he had a premonition he was going soon… people at the funeral said things like -how foolish -at his age -how tragic. Senseless comments.
    I know he was doing his inner work to prepare to go but I think he was shocked as well. My Grandmother died the following year at 99 in her sleep from natural causes while holding her daughter’s hand (my mom). Gran was ready to go as her body kept failing. And while mom can say it was a peaceful passing she still went into a downward spiral. So much loss in a short time. When it is a loved one it is always too soon.

  17. Death is my angel. The only thing that matters too me is its touch. I don’t know when i will die. May everyone at the moment of death have a mind full of love, appreciation, wisdom and acceptance. The final mind has massive impact on rebirth. May everyone be born in the upper worlds.

  18. A guy I used to volunteer with at the hospital died 27 years ago this coming Tuesday. He was speeding on a mountain road with no seatbelt on and went over an embankment. Died at the hospital. Since then I have worn seatbelts religiously.

    He was one of the most popular youth volunteers at that hospital, and every girl sat at his table at lunch. He was a cut-up, and he lit up the room. After his death, his funeral was packed.

    His death broke up his family, and a close friend of his has not been the same since. He was pretty much destroyed for a long time, but he is coming out of it and has created a Facebook memorial page. We know without a shadow of a doubt that the guy who passed away is alive on the other side and happy, but his family and friends still have to deal with the fact that his recklessness on the road robbed the community of someone vital to it. From time to time, I think about how he likely would have been a beloved local pediatrician today if he’d stayed alive.

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