A short and poignant animated video explains what happens as a person dies, a natural process described by Jennie Dear, a former hospice volunteer and author of WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO DIE? Inspiring New Insights into the Experience of Dying.
Using a commercially available patient doll with a mid-section that unzips to reveal tiny organs, Dear describes both the physical and mental breakdown of the body’s system; why a person will lose their appetite for food and water; why they will withdraw and become less interested in the outside world; and the final few hours when the body slips into unconsciousness and finally dies.
Dear became interested in the process of dying following the death of her mother from terminal cancer.
Americans talking about death everywhere - Death Cafes and meetups are on the rise - but in denial about facing it head-on. Because the topic is avoided people are ill equipped to handle its realities when it does finally arrive. After observing her mother’s decline and death as both a veteran caregiver and as a former journalist, Dear found that there is no shared cultural story about dying, a realistic look at what happens in between diagnosis and departure. Her video helps to demystify this passage that now impacts nearly 75 million baby boomers and their parents.