Most people I know have never watched a person die. Even those that have been to funerals and therefore have seen and been in physical proximity to a body, have rarely been present at the moment of death. The moment when in the eyes of the dying person the lights go out.
I have been there, in the moment, a number of times and remember every time with eerie clarity. Sometimes I have known the patient well; other times I have only met them in their last minutes or seconds. Sometimes it has been almost ethereally peaceful. Other times it has been frantic, chaotic or distressing despite our best efforts to treat end of life symptoms. Most often it has just happened.
drlj 