A wise man once voiced “Don’t be afraid of death, be afraid of an unlived life.” Validating this statement with reasoning as a society that gives things meaning we should communicate on death more instead of keeping the topic hidden. I say this because with the gift of life, comes the certainty of death. Caitlin Doughty a Mortician and author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory, uses humour through her work to comfort and educate the reader us (reader) on becoming more comfortable on what happens after death. Doughty believes we (humans) should be more intimate with the process of not only dying, but also with dead bodies. She brings up the history of caring for the dead and explains how families back then took care
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I like to call this the Death Corporation of America, which involves embalming (preserving the dead body using chemicals) and the taken of the body away. This honestly freaked me out, because if I die my body could be an asset to this industry as a return on profit. I don’t know how I feel about this. What also captured my attention was how people filled with riches tried to future their lives she quotes, “It is no surprise that the people trying so frantically to extend our lifespans are almost entirely rich, white men. Men who have lived lives of systematic privilege, and believe that privilege should extend indefinitely.” Secondly the death rituals, Doughty spoke about how japan handles its dead. After a body is pulled out of a cremation machine, the bones are spread out, they would then use chopsticks, to pick up the bones and placed them into a urn. As a form of respect they would start with the feet, and worked their way up to the head. So that the person would then walk upright into the next world. This honestly touched me because the families are there to experience the cremation, and basically have a connection with what’s actually being done to their loved …show more content…
We should be doing this more often because grief plays an important role and it bring us closer. Doughty quoted “Accepting death doesn 't mean you won 't be devastated when someone you love dies. It means you will be able to focus on your grief, unburdened by bigger existential questions like, "Why do people die?" and "Why is this happening to me?" Death isn 't happening to you. Death is happening to us all.” This statement is certainly gratifying, I say this because on November 12, 2001, my uncle Feliciano Valera Sierra, died in a plane crash. The American Airline Flight 587 was departing from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City to Santo Domingo’s Las Americas International Airport in the Dominican Republic. The plane took off and grievously crashed into the Belle Harbor neighborhood in Queens, New York. On board were 260 people all killed including my uncle. This honestly was extremely difficult to withstand. I was only six years old at the time, but I understood what took place and could reflect on it as if it happened yesterday. Today many individuals in my family are still massively affected by the incident and are still grieving many have accepted it and have moved on. A beautiful thing we do every year as a way to remember him is called a Hora Santa a religious ritual of music, prayer, and dinner. This brings the family closer, we gather and speak about our thoughts and the memories we once had with
I like to call this the Death Corporation of America, which involves embalming (preserving the dead body using chemicals) and the taken of the body away. This honestly freaked me out, because if I die my body could be an asset to this industry as a return on profit. I don’t know how I feel about this. What also captured my attention was how people filled with riches tried to future their lives she quotes, “It is no surprise that the people trying so frantically to extend our lifespans are almost entirely rich, white men. Men who have lived lives of systematic privilege, and believe that privilege should extend indefinitely.” Secondly the death rituals, Doughty spoke about how japan handles its dead. After a body is pulled out of a cremation machine, the bones are spread out, they would then use chopsticks, to pick up the bones and placed them into a urn. As a form of respect they would start with the feet, and worked their way up to the head. So that the person would then walk upright into the next world. This honestly touched me because the families are there to experience the cremation, and basically have a connection with what’s actually being done to their loved …show more content…
We should be doing this more often because grief plays an important role and it bring us closer. Doughty quoted “Accepting death doesn 't mean you won 't be devastated when someone you love dies. It means you will be able to focus on your grief, unburdened by bigger existential questions like, "Why do people die?" and "Why is this happening to me?" Death isn 't happening to you. Death is happening to us all.” This statement is certainly gratifying, I say this because on November 12, 2001, my uncle Feliciano Valera Sierra, died in a plane crash. The American Airline Flight 587 was departing from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City to Santo Domingo’s Las Americas International Airport in the Dominican Republic. The plane took off and grievously crashed into the Belle Harbor neighborhood in Queens, New York. On board were 260 people all killed including my uncle. This honestly was extremely difficult to withstand. I was only six years old at the time, but I understood what took place and could reflect on it as if it happened yesterday. Today many individuals in my family are still massively affected by the incident and are still grieving many have accepted it and have moved on. A beautiful thing we do every year as a way to remember him is called a Hora Santa a religious ritual of music, prayer, and dinner. This brings the family closer, we gather and speak about our thoughts and the memories we once had with