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September 1, 2014 -- Dying, my friend Heather taught me so much. I am a nurse, trained, licensed, and full of technical knowledge. I have accompanied patients toward the next world, and supported their failing, disfigured bodies en route. I know something about the inevitable sequence of events, the takeaways, the suffering.

About her cancer, Heather asked, "Is it serious?" What she wanted to hear was, "No, you'll get over it. You'll be fine." Being truthful, I said, "Yes." I wanted to add, "But there are things we can do to improve the situation." But she had already hung up the phone.

What did she teach me? The power of denial. When it's you, I can talk about it all day long. But when it's me, change the subject. I'm not going there. You can't make me. No one can make me.

The death spiral can be handled like so many others -- addiction, alcohol, violence -- spinning downward with eyes shut tight. I can be swallowed by it yet refuse to look at it. Of course, denial is one of Kubler-Ross's famous phases: "F* you, f* you all, f* the world, this isn't happening."

My father's passing in 2006 taught me a lot, too. He made it to the anger phase, or perhaps it was bargaining... Kubler-Ross is helpful but not the whole story. On his last day he said, "But I have so many projects yet to do." He was good at so many things; so much skill, wisdom, and passion for art, politics and people. All that is gone now.

My best buddy Mike on his own death bed got fully down the Kubler-Ross trajectory, all the way to the acceptance phase. He supported us around him who were falling apart, filled with grief at his impending departure. "It is what it is," he taught us.

Each died in their own way. Each taught a lesson I'll never forget.

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