Stages Of Death & Dying. The first stage is denial. The stage right before a person dies is called the agonal phase.
(even adults can have difficulty understanding “forever,” or that a loved one is “gone” when they die.) they need help to understand why someone has died, and that “death” means the body stops working. Some of the stages of dying start to be discernible a few months to a month before death occurs. Longer periods of sleep occur more often.