Between Us Girls

Death and Ritual

     I  have never liked the rituals that accompany death...the "viewings" especially.  They always struck me as creepy and morbid.  The deceased never looked quite like themselves and I couldn't imagine why people would want to remember their loved ones that way.  Even worse, there are those (including my own mother)who want photos of the person in the coffin.  Yikes!

     Growing up in a family that doesn't exactly have a reputation for longevity, I attended many funerals as a child.  And to this day, as much as I love flowers, walking into a flower shop gives me goosebumps.  To me, the smell of a generic mix of flowers is the smell of a funeral home.  While I'm not happy with this long-term effect of my childhood funeral experiences, I am glad in an overall sense that I was allowed to attend those funerals as a child.  I've met many people who never attended a funeral until adulthood and it was usually the funeral of someone very important in their lives - a parent or a sibling.  That's not the time you want to feel unprepared and creeped out.

     While I had the benefit(?) of early exposure that helped me to know what to expect and become somewhat immune to the creepiness factor, I still don't care for the funeral process.  Bu now, as a more experienced adult, I am able to better understand the need for these rituals that we put ourselves through.  In fact today, I was reminded of my early experiences with death and of the need we have for these parting rituals. Today I was reminded that no matter how much we try to protect our children, we simply can't

Living More Fully - Death as a Motivator

     "If I had my life to live over again I should form the habit of nightly composing myself to thoughts of death.  I would practice, as it were, the remembrance of death.  There is no other practice which so intensifies life..."

                              Muriel Spark

     We all die, of that there is no doubt.  And yet, we fail to truly comprehend this fact of life, being surprised and startled again and again.  Do we not comprehend the reality of death or is it simply so painful to contemplate, that our psyche's block it out in a desperate effort to preserve our sanity?

     Death is a part of life, but it's the part that we just don't want to think about.  And who can blame us?  The understanding and fear of our own mortality is what separates us from all of the other animals, and it is what makes our lives more trying and more treasured as well.  We wish it wouldn't have to be so, we invent religions with promises of life-everlasting, we selfishly prolong lives that simply aren't worth living...all to fight a losing battle.

     Death will eventually come, there is no denying it.  So what should we do with it instead?    Read more...

Three Things To Be Sure Of: Death, Taxes and Being Unprepared for Either

     This seems to be a time of loss for my family. Within the last month or so there have been three deaths; two family members and one friend.  Two of these deaths were expected, one was definitely not.  But, in the end, it's all the same.  We're never really prepared for the end, are we?  We all know that life is finite.  We know that all lives will come to an end, even our own.  But what we understand on an intellectual level and what we can comprehend on an emotional level are two separate things.

     My father died three years ago after a nine-year-long battle with leukemia.  We knew it was incurable and we knew it would someday take his life.  When his leukemia went from chronic to acute, we also knew that the chances for survival were slim and that this change in the progression of his disease meant the beginning of the end.  And yet, when it came to that final day, we were no more ready to handle his death than we would have been if he had been suddenly struck by lightning.

     I said to many people at the time that, even though he had a fatal illness and had survived three times the number of years he was given in the original prognosis, we were all somehow totally unprepared for his death.  We just weren't ready and I don't think that any amount of time would have made us so.  At any point during his illness, even when all of the signs of impending death were obvious, admitting to ourselves, or to each other, that the end was near seemed to reek too much of surrender, of giving up hope, of failure.  We just weren't willing to go there.

    This weekend my mother-in-law came to a similar end.  As my husband tried to wrap his mind around this, and perhaps to stave off the sorrow, he said "Well, it was expected."  My perhaps not-so-helpful response was "Yes, but that doesn't really help any."  That's my experience.  The occurrence of death, while expected, is not totally comprehensible.  And neither is the sense of finality and the depth of the emotional pain that accompany it. 

     It's up to each person to grapple with both the concept and the reality of death in his or her own way.  We may go through similar stages of grief and acceptance, but we do so in different ways and in our own time.  My way of dealing with things is usually to talk about it - a lot - and sometimes to write.  It helps me to sort through my feelings.  If any of you find talking or writing about loss to be therapeutic, feel free to share with me and others.  You are welcome to post comments relating your own sorrows or your own experience with, and suggestions for, working through it.

"We say that the hour of death cannot be forecast, but when we say this we imagine that hour as placed in an obscure and distant future.  It never occurs to us that it has any connection with the day already begun or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance."  ~Marcel Proust

"We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love."  ~Madame de Stael1960

"The death of someone we know always reminds us that we are still alive - perhaps for some purpose which we ought to re-examine." ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook

 

Dealing with Death and Loss at Mid-Life

     I went to a funeral service yesterday.  My uncle (not a blood relative, but one of those best friends of my parents from childhood type of things), whom I've had little contact with, had died peacefully after a long illness. My lack of any significant relationship with this family allowed me to sit back calmly and observe.  Expecting to be relatively unfazed emotionally, I found myself with a lump in my throat none-the-less.

     Stories told by the minister, my cousin's struggles to hold back tears and make it through the eulogy, Taps played at the end of the service all brought up memories of my own losses; particularly the loss of my dad three years ago.  It was inevitable really.  By this not-so-old, but then again not-so-young, age of forty-five, I have seen my fair share of death and loss.  By the time mid-life comes along, grandparents depart (if they haven't already died long ago), aunts and uncles pass on, parents begin to fail and die and let us not forget the serious illnesses and deaths among people our own age that begin to happen with increasing frequency.  Is it any wonder that depression and unhappiness peak for many people around age forty-four or so?

    For most of us, it is somewhere around mid-life that the reality of death and of our own mortality meets us face-to-face.  It's how we meet and greet this unwelcome but inevitable visitor that determines our own personal level of fear and discomfort at mid-life.  Our unpreparedness and lack of ability to cope with the reality of death can become a powerful accelerator on the road to mid-life crisis.

     How is it that people cope with all of the losses that begin to pile up at this time of life?  Each person eventually finds his or her own way, but it is usually a process that takes some time.  For many people, religion plays a large part.  Although the belief that a dear departed one has moved on to a better life and will be seen again one day offers hope, it really offers little comfort to the person who is dealing with loss in the here and now.  Some future possibility of reuniting with a loved one doesn't really stop the pain, does it?  And if you don't believe in life after death?  Well, then people just don't know what to say.  How do you provide comfort to someone suffering a loss?  How do you find comfort if you're the one suffering?

     Many people have had a lot to say over the years about death, loss and coping with it all.  One of the most well-known is Elisabeth Kubler-Ross who spent a lot of time with dying people and tried to use this experience to help the rest of us better understand the dying process.  Others have also tried to provide methods for coping with loss.  Some of the best advice I got was during my training for becoming a hospice volunteer.  We were encouraged to listen, allowing the dying or the grieving family member to talk and express their real feelings without fear of criticism and without having to hear annoying platitudes.  We also learned that time and the expression of feelings in one's own way, in one's own time is what heals; not what anyone says in response.

    Some of us just need to talk through our loss, for others talking is too difficult.  Writing letters to the the person we have lost can help to get those feelings out, as can painting, drawing, or preparing memorial scrapbooks.  The point is that, for all of us, the grieving process is uniquely our own; it happens how and when and for how long we decide it must.  It can be particularly difficult at mid-life because we sometimes choose to not deal with death.  We get a fake tan, dress like a teenager and pretend it just isn't happening.  All of it a desperate attempt to run like hell from the inevitable.

     There is an upside to this fear of death that weighs so heavily upon us a mid-life.  A little bit of fear can be a good thing; a motivator.  Used properly, fear of our impending demise can push us to make long-overdue changes in our live.  Realizing that it will someday come to an end, we can choose to make the most of what life we have left.  I'm in the midst of this process myself, trying to harness those wild-eyed horses of panic so they'll lead me to joyful engagement with life instead of a plunge off of the nearest cliff!  There are lots of ways to work through this and lots of people to help.  I've included some resources for dealing with loss and also for renewing your life at mid-life in the sidebar (see Loss and Mid-Life Headings).  If you have any helpful suggestions for those dealing with loss or mid-life crises, please post comments.  This site is meant to be a way for us girls to help each other.  I value everyone's input.