European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 9, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Swiss born psych Lariat Elisabeth Kubler Rosa it her farm in Virginia leaches the living How to help th9 dying end the dying How to prepare for death. Reflections on death and dying by Kay Bartlett associated press her calling is dealt and the aids epidemic has Given new urgency to her Mission or. Elisabeth Kubler Ross a Swiss born psychiatrist Loaches Iho living Haw id help the dying the dying How to prepare Lor death. Sho believes in reincarnation and her message is that death is Only a transition an end Only to the body. A cheers Al woman with a weather beaten lace she was found 1his Day in head Waters a. Planting magnolias and azaleas and Rhododendron outside the 250-year-old log Cabin she transplanted to her 300-acre Arm which she Calls a easing Gubser Ross now 60, first attracted International attention in 1969 after she published on death Ana dying a Book which outlined the five stages of death the first stage As she outlines it is the denial and isolation. For example the patient who is sum there must be a min up in the a rays. Next comes anger he Why me syndrome. Thirdly Inre is the bargaining if i can Beal this. I will be a then comes depression and finally. She fifth Slage an acceptance of death. The author oms books an death and dying Kubler Ross is away irom her idyllic Virginia Retreat about 90 percent of the time giving lectures and five Day workshops Lor 99 people at a time in the United slates and places As diverse As Australia new zealand and Ireland. She says about one third of he participants in her workshops Are members of the Healing professions mho want to learn hew to Deal with the terminally Ili. Another third Are people who Are dying and another third Are just i have trained thousands and thousand., of ministers and doctors to Deal with death and dying and still there Are not enough for what we Are about to go through she says. The subject of her latest Book is the epidemic of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Aids is Here to stay until we learn our lesson from it i m absolutely convinced of the Resson she says has nothing to do with sin promiscuity or homosexuality the lesson is to learn unconditional love for our fellow Man to Lea n thai All men Are Brothers. People complain Aboul nazi Germany but what to re doing Here is not one bit different when it comes to the treatment of aids patients she says. We have to learn some vary Basic stuff before it s too late. It will Hil Many More people. It will hit families and children and people wifi really have to do some she is still bitter Over the defeat she suffered when the local populace Defeated her efforts to establish a hospice for abandoned children with aids in the Furat mountainous area on the West Virginia Virginia Border called Little the resistance she encountered in discussions at town meetings dissuaded her from pursuing Tho matter further. One Man said he was a reborn Christian bul thai if there were an ambulance Call for one of these children he would not respond she recalls. Another Atso said he was a reborn Christian but if one of these children were to iry and go to school the doors would be locked these Aie nol christians1" she says she has spent the past three years trying to establish the Center. It s been three years of Trust ration and impotent rage she says. We put every Nickel we had Inlo in the royalties of Tho new Book. I Teple led All my own resources but 1 suppose the people who Are supposed to be involved Are nol vet she has succeeded in getting some of the abandoned aids babies placed in Loster Homes bul her frustration is evidenced by the hundreds of handmade dolls she has in her Home sent to her for the aids victims from All Over the world. Kubler Ross describes herself As a sceptical scientist who is positive there is an afterlife she believes that the Sou will never die thai deals is simply a Iran Ilion in which we pass in a tremendous Light of love and Are greeted by someone who loved us in this life when asked in she belongs to any specific religion she replied. I m spiritual not religious. I m a Strong believer in the Power we can got from god. What religions practice and what they preach Are often to different things but she nays she prayed for a Way to scientifically research what she Bav As Chu Sal Itha or patients ii came through children to whom she has a special Affinity and through the deals of an american Indian woman. She cells How the deals of the Indian woman the victim of a hit and run Accident helped Lead her to investigate How loved ones already dead Greet people As they died. She says a truck Driver stopped to help the dying woman and the woman asked him to Tell her Molher that everything was att right that her lather was already Tho Driver was so impressed by the urgency of the message he drove 700 Miles out of his Way to Tell the Mother ii was impossible of reach tier by Telephone. It was Only Inen the he Learned that the Young woman s father had died exactly one hour before she did. There was no Way she could have known Kubler Ross says. He had not been ill and died of a heart attack. Thus according to Elisabeth Kubler Ross the father was on the other Side wailing for his daughter and she saw him just before she died. The psychiatrist then started searching Tor other dying people who did nol know that a very close loved one had already died. Then if i hat dying person reported the loved one was there to Greet them it could not to argued that in was wish fulfilment. Sho says she found her answers in the intensive care units of hospitals where entire families had been involved in car accidents or ires. I would always go and Sil with the youngest child she says. When they Weie near Ira death they would always say something like Mommy and Peter Are wailing for me.1 the children were never wrong. They never said a person who survived the Accident or the fire was there. It was always always always the people who had once she says she had a momentary doubt. The Young child said her brother was there waiting. The brother. Kubler Ross knew was in another Hospital but expected to live. As Kubler Ross was leaving the Hospital she was lot the brother had died 10 minutes earlier. Page 14 the stars and stripes saturday. I
