Are we talking about our own death, or the death of loved ones?
For me, I have been attending visitations and funerals since I was very young partly because my father was quite old when he had me and he had a large family growing up, most of whom are gone now. So to me, death of a family member is a natural process.
However, I don’t have any siblings and both of my parents are still alive, so I don’t really know how I will react to the loss of someone so close to me.
As for an individual handling their own death, the people who have lived good lives seem to be able to handle it better. I suppose because there is less nagging doubt about things they may have done differently. My grandmother went within six months or so and I remember seeing her at the end and her thoughts were about the need to hold on and see the family members and be part of their plans. Once she was able to release her responsibility to them, she slipped away quite peacefully, to my knowledge.
So, to directly answer your question Marina, yes I do think that some changes are needed. People need to be exposed to it and not sheltered from it because the act of sheltering them, gives the impression that death is something to hide or fear. There should be more celebration of the person’s life and how they would want everyone to get along when they were gone.
I also think there should be less focus on building the individual ego or at least a comparable focus on developing a sense of acceptance to what life brings at you. This will help people to stop trying to grasp at the things that can’t be changed. That will allow grief to be lessened because you instead focus on the happy times and know that you did everything you could to be with and learn from and teach those that have touched your life, even for a short time.