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We have so completely hospitalized, medicalized, and privatized death that most people have never stood vigil, kept a death watch. Most people have never watched someone slowly die.
This would have been impossible for my grandmother’s generation to conceive of.
This would have been impossible for my grandmother’s generation to conceive of.
No antibiotics. No or few vaccines. Most deaths were by illness at home.
Family members cared for the dying. Childhood and maternal mortality were commonplace.
Bodies bathed and laid out in the front room.
Family members cared for the dying. Childhood and maternal mortality were commonplace.
Bodies bathed and laid out in the front room.
Bells rang for emergencies and when someone died.
The entire community informed, involved and engaged in the process of dying and bereavement and burial.
There was no one who had lived for any length of time who hadn’t witnessed a dying process.
The entire community informed, involved and engaged in the process of dying and bereavement and burial.
There was no one who had lived for any length of time who hadn’t witnessed a dying process.
Elders lived with family members as did the disabled and chronically ill.
They didn’t die far away in special facilities.
When someone died, they went viscerally missing.
They didn’t die far away in special facilities.
When someone died, they went viscerally missing.
Dying was a public event. Thanatological study sometimes refers to this as a “tamed death”. Death as normal. Expectable. Collective.
Death wasn’t abstract or deniable.
But now, we never see the bodies. Or the dying process. Medical personnel plead with us to try to imagine what they see daily.
But now, we never see the bodies. Or the dying process. Medical personnel plead with us to try to imagine what they see daily.
We see the numbers climbing. 2,000, 3,000,
We see little snippets of obituary
We hear of dying second hand, even when they are our own family members.
It is all so dissociated that even those who are trying to comprehend it can barely do so.
We see little snippets of obituary
We hear of dying second hand, even when they are our own family members.
It is all so dissociated that even those who are trying to comprehend it can barely do so.
There are no viewings. No funeral. We do not encounter our loved ones vacant bodies.
And some significant number of us insist that none of it is real, or that the invisiblized died off is insignificant.
And some significant number of us insist that none of it is real, or that the invisiblized died off is insignificant.
This is part of the aftermath we will have to grapple with if we are able to tame this virus and come together and grieve again.
We will have to wail and remember how to forge some kind of sane, conscious, collective relationship with death as part of living.
We will have to wail and remember how to forge some kind of sane, conscious, collective relationship with death as part of living.
This will be all the more necessary as climate breakdown continues to unfold.
But I also wonder, if we (meaning dominant culture) could learn to live as though we are temporary, finite- if we could live more gently and thoughtfully on the earth
But I also wonder, if we (meaning dominant culture) could learn to live as though we are temporary, finite- if we could live more gently and thoughtfully on the earth
Certainly delusions of supremacy & immortality were dangerous & destructive long before death was medicalized.
We can remain monstrous even as we encounter death by outsourcing it to bodies we deem as “other”.
We can remain monstrous even as we encounter death by outsourcing it to bodies we deem as “other”.
I don’t think death estrangement is the single source of our current cultural disaster - just a component.
