How Do “I” Encounter My Own Death?

Abstract

This essay contrasts the unavoidable confrontation with their own death that all people share and current endeavors to avoid fear and loneliness in dying. Death is the last battle that each person must fight alone, a fact that challenges the widespread notion of human beings as constituted only by their social relations. It also challenges care for the dying that attempts to suppress the perception of a Christian hope against hope. But Christ's victory over death gives us the promise that we will not be deserted in dying and that God's acting will be revealed as interwoven with our life and our death.