Merely conjecture...

My Great Aunt passed away a couple of days ago. Irony or not, I was working on a death scene for my second book…and it got me thinking more about writing these types of things and how they are merely conjecture. How do we describe something like dying with any accuracy when our present lives lack such an experience?

Yes, I am aware of people claiming they have died and been brought back to life by the marvels and miracles of science and faith. Barring their testimonies, the experience of death and writing about it is truly left to our imaginations - conjecture. Does sight become hazy and fade to darkness? Is it like a blink, one second light and the next blackness? What might a character feel, taste, see, and smell in those moments between life and death?

The vast and differing emotions accompanying losing someone are something that I have experienced, too much. Death is no stranger to me, as many friends in my life have died. However, most of these were from cancer - a slow, drawn out termination of life. (An aside to this, although I am most familiar with cancer related things, I have yet to write anything concerning it or dying from it. Perhaps it is just too sensitive and intimate of a topic to expose transparency?) Other friends and family have had quicker ends with little to no closure for themselves or those they leave behind. All that being said, writing from the perspective of someone who has labored on in the land of the living is something easily tapped into when penning a page. But the one who is gone? I can research near deaths, doctors' knowledge of various terminations, etc., but really, when writing about death, it is merely conjecture.