Never Visit a Dying Person

Never Visit a Dying Person
By Virginia A. Simpson, PhD
Next Avenue
December 1, 2023
Before a fit of disgust at my callousness takes over, I’m going tell you what I mean when I say, Never visit a dying person. After a young woman named Beyhan died, her friends put together her words and published a small book called “Beyhan’s Journey.” Beyhan said, I could always tell when someone was visiting a dying person. She meant that because they no longer saw her as the person she still was, they treated her differently. The message is this: Visit the person, not their disease, diagnosis or prognosis.
[Editor’s Note: The author has worked with dying and grieving people for more than 38 years. She’s the author of “The Space Between: A Memoir of Mother-Daughter Love at the End of Life.”]