Elizabeth Kubler-Ross died Tuesday. I suppose this really isn't a word post, but I have rationalized that it is since the article I read said, "The five stages of grief Kubler-Ross outlined--denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance--have become part of America's popular vocabulary."

Two stories about her are memorable. The experience that most influenced her life was when she visited the concentration camps after WWII. She discovered that butterflies were carved all over the walls of the barracks where prisoners languished before dying in the gas chamber. These carvings helped her to realize that even in the midst of tragedy a person can still find love and beauty, support and acceptance. She never forgot those butterflies.

Then, she was astounded about the macho culture of medicine when she moved to America. She found that medicine treated death like an enemy to be conquered, not accomodated. So, she decided to study death and dying. She went to the oncologists at the University of Chicago Hospitals and asked to talk with their dying patients. The physicians said, "Oh, none of our patients are dying." And, they meant it.

We have come a long way in caring for the dying since Kubler-Ross, thankfully...though not as far as those in the UK and Canada, I think.

I confess I had not heard of Dr Kübler-Ross before, but on looking through her Web site at http://www.elisabethkublerross.com/ it is evident that she has had a strong influence on modern society's attitude towards death and the dying.

I don't think I'd heard the word "hospice" until about twenty years ago, although I believe such institutions existed, though chronically under-funded.