The Circle of Life: How Birth and Death Mirror One Another

The life cycle. We are born, we experience, and then we die.

What I find interesting is that the beginning and the ending are similar but reversed.

There are two ways to be born, vaginally or by cesarean section. With a C-section, one minute you are floating in a warm, quiet place and the next you are in a cold, loud, uncomfortable place. With a vaginal birth you work and struggle to finally arrive in this cold, loud, strange place.

There are two ways to die — gradual or fast. Fast is when you are alive one minute and dead the next. A gradual death is when you die from a disease or old age. That often takes months.

With some births, mom sneezes and out pops the baby. With others, 36 hours later they are still working to push the baby out. Short labors, long labors.

Dying is like that also. Some of us can get out of our bodies easier than others. Short labors, long labors.

Food is another comparison to the beginning of life. We begin with water, progress to milk, then soft foods. Gradually, our menu increases until we are eating any and everything.

Over the course of three to four months during a gradual death, this progression reverses. First we stop eating meat and other foods that are hard to digest, then even fruits and vegetables are too much. We progress to eating soft foods, soups, then protein supplements and finally it is just water. 

Our socialization begins within the tight circle of mom and dad, progresses to including extended family, then we make friends. We meet others at daycare and classmates at school. Finally, we become a part of the world at large.

Our socialization as death approaches is also reversed. We first lose interest in world activities. Then our interest shrinks down to just friends, and finally just family and those closest to us.

The circle of life. Maybe if we understand it is a circle, we can see that the end of a life, although very, very sad, is the normal unfolding — a completion of the cycle.

Something more… The Circle of Life: How Birth and Death Mirror One Another

If this blog resonates with you, you may find comfort in learning more about what is normal at the end of life. Our resources are written to gently guide families and caregivers through the natural dying process.