When did the beginning suddenly appear?

From residency diary A2 in Paris, May 2005

Extract by Alit Kreiz & Anton Mirto

In June 2003 we began looking at death in order to look at life and how we are experiencing it more closely. This was to become our chosen artistic theme for the next 2 years and probably longer until the fear goes. We were 35 and still had questions.

When did the beginning suddenly appear in Paris?
October-November 2004. A month’s research in Paris led us to Psychiatrists, Psychoanalysts, Consultants & Spiritual practitioners accompanying the terminally ill, the bereaved & those who have experienced near death. A neuron-pathologist, documentary filmmakers on the subject, a director of funeral services, Palliative care hospice workers & volunteers, The president of the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Foundation, The FXB Death Resource centre, cemeteries & ‘death’ websites, (American…but that’s another story). We met people that had lost someone, people that were loosing someone & a medicinal clown that would do anything to preserve a smile.

It was a process of letting go of any thing we knew before.
Of any thing we expected to hear. Of familiarity and predictability. Of our growing perplexity to the overwhelming and contradictory ways of seeing, vis à vis our stubborn question; what is death, and why are we so afraid of it?
We had to let go of our own fear of our own death. We were looking at death and began discovering what life could be… fearless

We discovered there is an illusion of a good death as opposed to a bad death; the illusion exists in the question of individual acceptance.
We discovered that when heaven was still part of our general western belief system, we accepted death more willingly, as we hoped to be fulfilled in heaven.
We discovered not all angels have wings.
We discovered the painful and confusing practicality and common place routine of the dying and their families. We discovered that a person might choose a very particular moment, to die.
We discovered the importance and meaning of palliative care and how it aims to translate across cultures and faiths.
We discovered the fear of not leaving a trace. The suffering of change. We discovered that our western preoccupation to control disease, to increase life expectancy, has created an obsession with this life. We discovered that for some, life ends with the stopping of breath, for others with the stopping of mind, for others still... it never stops, at all.