One physician told me of a person near death who had a son planning to get married and was proceeding with plans as his mother had wished. She was sad to think she could not attend the big day for her eldest and favorite child. She persuaded the hospital staff to give her enough medicine so she could be kept reasonably comfortable for a few hours during the wedding. She had made all kinds of promises if she could only live long enough to attend his wedding and left the hospital on the day of the wedding appearing to be the happiest person in the world. After the wedding, she returned to the hospital looking tired and exhausted.
Bargaining seems to be a normal emotional part of the whole process of dying.
Regardless of who the process is directed toward, some sense of guilt or uncompleted desires are usually involved. Pastors can neither brush aside nor reinforce these feelings, but through the art of sensitive listening, help the person move through this very difficult period. Once denial, anger, and bargaining seem to have run their course, the dying person may experience a sense of depression which Kubler-Ross sees as a stage in which the person feels there is no hope. A pastor's initial response may be that of trying to cheer him up, but this represents an expression of a pastor's own needs and inability to cope with the saddened facial expression or tear-filled eyes. The dying have a need to go through a stage of depression.