From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Bob Carlson, and this is Unfictional.

Unfictional is KCRW's program of stories and original documentaries. From KCRW's program of Stories and Original Documentaries, from KCRW's Independent Producer Project,

a laboratory for independent radio producers, writers, and performers, and today on the program we know it's coming most of our lives.

Some of us think about it obsessively.

Some of us avoid thinking about it obsessively.

And while our birth and dying are two of life's most profound moments, we're not really present for either one of them.

But at least around a birth, someone's there taking pictures or shooting video.

But at the end, when the lights go out, that's more fleeting. How do we

predict that moment? And who do we want there when it comes? Today, on unfictional,

who will be there when you cross over?

It seems like animals might have a healthier sense of death than we humans do.

Your dog doesn't spend his days brooding over his mortality,

and your cat isn't going to feel guilty about the bird he just dragged into the house.

As far as the cat is concerned, that's just the way it ends sometimes.

If you're a bird.

That said there's the skills of your standard house cat but then there's a cat named

Oscar who seems to be tuned into something we humans can only guess at.

Well at the beginning Oscar was very much just a cat that would stay out of the way.

Race from one room to another period. much just a cat that would stay out of the way.

Race from one room to another periodically or race behind the medicine card or in a closet somewhere.

Dr David Dosa is a practicing geriatrician and health services researcher at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

He's also a physician at Steerhouse Nursing and Rehabilitation Center,

...