Dying

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While it has been stated that the dominant culture of North America is death-denying and death-phobic, this statement is rarely elaborated. The documented experiences and perspectives of dying and death in three selected films offer the opportunity to observe the discourses of dying and death. A dialogue between two Canadian documentary films, Dying at Grace and Kids Care, and the narrative foreign Dutch film Antonia's Line, provide the occasion for illustration and examination of the discourse of dying and death in Canada and our general fearful countenance toward death. Authored from the perspective of clinical experience in community palliative care and a view of medicine as culture, the influence of the contemporary character of North America upon the experience of and response to dying and death are considered. This exploration affirms the existence of a fear of dying and death, on individual and collective levels, advocating for accommodation of this fear in the orientation of professional caregivers of those who are dying and their families. Though a terminal diagnosis may be one''s last chance to learn about dying and death, fear need not be the dominant response to death.