The Art of Dying: A Global Nursing Perspective

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore how people from diverse backgrounds and places, who are severely ill, disabled, or facing death, use art to help themselves and others not only make sense of such experiences but live fully with loss and the limited time remaining. The humanbecoming paradigm is used to provide a language to talk about Western and non-Western experiences of life-threatening illness, disability and death, and art. The persons discussed in the paper suggest that age and place, although influences, are not particularly relevant, nor is severe illness, even those associated with significant failing capacities, because they cannot contain the human spirit or relationships.