UH theologian guides
4 journeys toward death
"Living Your Dying": Airs at 8:30 today and repeats at 10 p.m. Saturday on KHET/PBSFor most, death is a difficult topic, but it's a subject the Rev. Mitsuo Aoki has studied since his own near-death experience in the '60s. He explores the universal question of how to best approach one's final journey in a Lotus Films documentary airing tonight and repeating Saturday on KHET/PBS.
Aoki, a theologian, minister, college professor and founder of the University of Hawaii's Department of Religion, is one of the seminal figures in Hawaii's hospice movement.
In "Living Your Dying," he shares how nearly being killed in a car accident helped him to better understand and embrace death as an integral part of life. He shares his belief that death is a key to self-understanding and an opportunity to experience life more fully.
Aoki has dedicated more than four decades to teaching individuals how to experience death not merely as an end, but as an inseparable part of life. The documentary, filmed over a 10-year period, also explores the personal journeys of four who faced the challenge of "living their dying": Joseph Michael Thomson, Fay Nalani Peters, Martha Ululani Mendiola and Aoki's wife, Lynne.
Aoki helped these individuals and their families cope with the emotional aspects of terminal illness and eventual death.
"'Living Your Dying' is very dear to my heart because, like the subjects in the film, I was diagnosed with an advanced-stage cancer," said producer-director-writer Robert Pennybacker. "I could see a lot of me in their stories. Working to shape their footage into a single, unified narrative was a cathartic experience for me.
"What I would like people to get out of the film is that death is not to be feared, that it is to be embraced as part of life and that the more you accept this and face up to it, the easier and more fulfilling it will be for you to deal with your own dying and the deaths of your loved ones."
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