“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”
Death. Few people like to talk about it, yet it is one constant that unites people regardless of race, creed, or culture. Each of us, some tragically sooner than others, will shed this mortal coil one day. But most of us will not give much thought to how we want our death to be until it is staring us in the face. Whether it is denial, fear, superstition, or some other block, it just doesn’t happen. I distinctly remember my mom refusing to talk about it at all with my dad until 2014, when his twin brother died.
I spend a lot of time with the dying; it is quite literally my livelihood. So I see a lot of consideration for the how and why and what of funerals. I also see a lot of what happens in the weeks, days, and hours before we die. And what happens when we don’t our loved ones don’t know what we want in our final moments. We don’t spend nearly enough time talking about it — what it looks like, sounds like, feels, or what comes after.
I am a strong believer in open and frank discussion: it makes the unknown less scary. This short series will talk about death: it’s customs, what it looks like, and how to have a good death.
Customs surrounding death vary widely from culture to culture. During its infancy, funerals in the United States were often both somber and lavish affairs that were also far too common: 40% of children died before reaching adulthood. While the funeral services themselves were more serious, the wakes were expensive celebrations that included gifts like gold rings given to mourners. When Waitstill Winthrop, grandson of the founding governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, died, his funeral cost over 600 pounds, 1/5th of the value of his estate. When the costly demands of funerals left some families impoverished, laws were passed regulating and limiting funeral-related expenses. With the birth of the funeral industry in the 19th century, and the death toll from the Civil War leading to the practice of embalming, the way we observed death changed. Abraham Lincoln’s remains were embalmed and taken on a two-week tour of the United States; his corpse was embalmed multiple times on the journey, to the point he was essentially mummified when he reached his final resting place.
The most familiar form of the American funeral still involves the embalming and viewing of the deceased; although green burials (sans the embalming chemicals and long lasting caskets and vaults) are becoming more popular. Cremation also remains a strong option for those who eschew embalming or prefer a less costly funeral. There are also “extreme embalming” funerals that create tableaus with the deceased doing things they loved in life: playing cards, riding their motorcycle, or performing one final concert.
Around the world, funerals are a tapestry that weaves both mourning and celebration together: in eastern Indonesia, deceased loved ones are placed in a special room in the house until the family has the resources for a funeral that can last for days or weeks. Until the funeral, the loved one is still cared for by family and referred to as “sick” or “asleep.” In Ghana, the deceased are sometimes buried in “fantasy coffins” that pay homage to something they loved in life. Every five to seven years, the Malagasy people of Madagascar hold a “turning of the bones” during which they exhume their loved one’s remains, spray them with wine or perfume, and feast and dance.
In the next part, we’ll talk about what death looks like.