Caitlin Doughty's Blog, page 23
February 23, 2018
February 17, 2018
What I Wish I’d Given Him: Grappling With Gifts For a Dying Family Member
A couple Christmases ago, I really stepped in it.
My father-in-law Sam* was dying of cancer. He accepted he was dying. The family accepted he was dying. Even as death pulled the flesh from his bones and the memories from his head, Sam lived for the people he chose to love. And the occasional extra dry martini.
Sam was the champion of the pithy, “deathy” one-liner. I think he saw it as a way to put the rest of us at ease while letting us know he was “in on it”. When he’d catch one of us getting that “Precious Moments” look in our eyes – overly sentimental, googley, tears threatening – he’d roar with some crass joke about adult diapers or how we’d never get his gold because he planned to take it with him in a very large (and very heavy) casket. (No, Sam didn’t really have a bunch of gold. He wasn’t a pirate, people.)
When Christmas neared, a holiday he loved, my husband and I worried about what to give him. Sam loved gifts. He loved giving them, he loved receiving them, he loved searching for them on his beloved Amazon. When he found out that I couldn’t eat gluten many years ago, finding me gluten-free cookbooks became a pastime of his. But knowing that this would likely be Sam’s last Christmas, maybe his last few months of life, what should we give him?
In the past we’d given him cooking paraphernalia – gadgets he wanted, rare spices he coveted, kooky aprons, subscriptions to food magazines. Things he could look forward to cooking with for years to come. But now, since the cancer had robbed him of his ability to stand for long periods, as well as his ability to taste anything but very sweet or very salty, giving him that grill master starter set he talked about was just cruel.
I looked on the Internet, with such search parameters as, “gifts, dying loved one”. While there were some good ideas, not many seemed to fit Sam. A memory book, “the gift of togetherness”, donations to Sam’s favorite charities so that they might “live on” after him.
While these may be right for and appreciated by a lot of people – my intent is not to throw shade on people’s experiences and good will – many of the suggestions I read seemed too maudlin for him. They all seemed to fly in the face of Sam’s demand that NORMAL LIFE CARRY ON. That was his greatest Christmas wish. But how do you wrap that up in reindeer paper and put it under the tree?
While a cozy quilt for him to snuggle up with in bed or in his chair seemed like a good idea in theory, he already had blankets he liked. Dying did not steal Sam’s practical side. I can only imagine his face if I gave him a quilt. I can hear him saying, “You’re giving me…a death blankie?”
In retrospect, I think I overthought it. All my death positive comfort with talking death didn’t prepare me for the living side of dying. Sam did not deny his dying, but looking back I think I was grabbing at a way to do it for him. It’s hard for me to admit now. Until you watch someone you love slowly die, it’s hard to understand how tempting and easy it is for death denial to creep into your actions.
I rationally accepted Sam’s death, but my emotional side, my attachment to Sam and his presence in my life, made me grasp impotently at ways to make him not really be dying; to hold on a little longer. It blew up in my face. My death denial not only threw Sam’s dying in his face, it made him feel lonely.
When he eagerly opened my gifts amidst the excitement of the family and grandchildren opening theirs, his face fell. He furrowed his brown. He smiled at me with love and appreciation, but there wasn’t enthusiasm behind it. It was forced.
I’d chosen to give him a bunch of small gifts that I figured he could enjoy now not later. Small packages of favorite delicacies – smoked abalone, his favorite candies he’d often mentioned he could rarely find anymore, other edible treats that his illness still allowed him to relish. I also enclosed a note, a heartfelt outpouring of what he meant to me.
Before some of you come to my defense, as many have when I’ve retold this story, or come to the defense of such gifts, know that it wasn’t so much the items but what it transmitted to Sam. Inadvertently the items, and maybe more the note, communicated to Sam that somehow I’d pulled away. You’re dying, here are the shadows of the gifts I would actually have given you if I knew your life was not ending soon.
In my attempt to “fix” the unfixable situation of his death, I had given him things that felt “safe”. I had put on the brakes. In effect, the gifts were, to put it plainly, weird. The embodiment of flailing in the face of grief; not the sense of continuity and normalcy he craved. Even while I had wrapped those gifts, my gut knew better. But I ignored what I knew of Sam and the guidance Sam had given me in favor of my own comfort.
Many people have said I’m being too hard on myself. Our relationship was not destroyed or even really altered by those gifts. Maybe I am being too overwrought and self-flagellating. But when Sam looked at the assortment of edible trinkets I’d given him, his loneliness was palpable. I will never forget his withdrawn face as he quietly put the gifts into the basket on his walker. He was with me, with his loved ones, but he was not with us.
I know I didn’t do that to him. But I helped to take him out of the moment, and the pain I brought to his attention haunts me. Maybe it’s not rational, it’s indicative of some greater anxiety I need to confront, but it’s the truth.
Dying is lonely. When we who are not actively dying must stand with our loved ones who are dying, we feel the responsibility and the desire to make it less lonely for them. We can only do this to some extent. But we can exacerbate it, even with the greatest of intentions. Often with the greatest of intentions.
The moment with the gifts was fast. As quickly as it happened, it was over. The rest of Christmas was unremarkable in its joy. In that regard, I think Sam got his wish.
Months after his death, I was visiting my husband’s childhood home, the home that Sam and his partner shared, and I came across a box of Sam’s stuff in the laundry room. In it was a book he had been reading, his glasses, and most of the gifts I’d given him. Unopened, untouched. The candies however, were gone. I hope he enjoyed them, that they were a taste of normal.
I don’t offer this story as instruction. What happened with Sam was something I struggled to put into words. What was or was not right for him, is not an indication of what is right or not right for another person in the same situation. But it was something I felt totally unprepared for. Something that I suspect few people actually are prepared for.
I’ve come to learn that that was and is no crime. Being death positive does not mean having all the answers or being impervious to mistakes in handling death and dying. Perhaps it means we choose to grapple with discomfort in a way that culture generally does not condone.
I’m still grappling.
I don’t know what I would have done differently. In thinking about what would have been better, a more suitable gift for Sam, I still come up empty. Sometimes I wonder if I should have just given him the kitchen gadgets I knew he wanted, despite my fear that it would be hurtful. I think so many of the missteps I made during Sam’s dying, this and others, came from me being too much in my head; worried about my issues. I knew what Sam wanted, but I second guessed him.
Gift-giving in the shadow of death can be such a bitter-sweet act, maybe an act that demands a kind of selflessness many of us are ill-equipped to process. I know that for me, I confused how much a person treasures something with the length of time they treasure it.
Have any of you ever had to give gifts, either during the holidays or for other occasions, to a dying loved one? What did you do? How did you decide what to give? How did it work out?
*Name changed to respect the family’s privacy.
Louise Hung is an American writer living in Japan. You may remember her from xoJane’s Creepy Corner, Global Comment, or from one of her many articles on death, folklore, or cats floating around the Internet. Follow her on Twitter.
If you enjoyed this piece, please consider supporting our work. Your contribution goes directly toward running The Order, including resources, research, paying our writers and staff, and funding more frequent content. We’d love to keep pushing the funerary envelope in 2018. Visit our Support Us page, for a variety of easy ways to contribute.
What I Wish I’d Given Him: Grappling With Gifts For a Dying Family Member
What I Wish I’d Given Him: Grappling With Gifts For a Dying Family
A couple Christmases ago, I really stepped in it.
My father-in-law Sam* was dying of cancer. He accepted he was dying. The family accepted he was dying. Even as death pulled the flesh from his bones and the memories from his head, Sam lived for the people he chose to love. And the occasional extra dry martini.
Sam was the champion of the pithy, “deathy” one-liner. I think he saw it as a way to put the rest of us at ease while letting us know he was “in on it”. When he’d catch one of us getting that “Precious Moments” look in our eyes – overly sentimental, googley, tears threatening – he’d roar with some crass joke about adult diapers or how we’d never get his gold because he planned to take it with him in a very large (and very heavy) casket. (No, Sam didn’t really have a bunch of gold. He wasn’t a pirate, people.)
When Christmas neared, a holiday he loved, my husband and I worried about what to give him. Sam loved gifts. He loved giving them, he loved receiving them, he loved searching for them on his beloved Amazon. When he found out that I couldn’t eat gluten many years ago, finding me gluten-free cookbooks became a pastime of his. But knowing that this would likely be Sam’s last Christmas, maybe his last few months of life, what should we give him?
In the past we’d given him cooking paraphernalia – gadgets he wanted, rare spices he coveted, kooky aprons, subscriptions to food magazines. Things he could look forward to cooking with for years to come. But now, since the cancer had robbed him of his ability to stand for long periods, as well as his ability to taste anything but very sweet or very salty, giving him that grill master starter set he talked about was just cruel.
I looked on the Internet, with such search parameters as, “gifts, dying loved one”. While there were some good ideas, not many seemed to fit Sam. A memory book, “the gift of togetherness”, donations to Sam’s favorite charities so that they might “live on” after him.
While these may be right for and appreciated by a lot of people – my intent is not to throw shade on people’s experiences and good will – many of the suggestions I read seemed too maudlin for him. They all seemed to fly in the face of Sam’s demand that NORMAL LIFE CARRY ON. That was his greatest Christmas wish. But how do you wrap that up in reindeer paper and put it under the tree?
While a cozy quilt for him to snuggle up with in bed or in his chair seemed like a good idea in theory, he already had blankets he liked. Dying did not steal Sam’s practical side. I can only imagine his face if I gave him a quilt. I can hear him saying, “You’re giving me…a death blankie?”
In retrospect, I think I overthought it. All my death positive comfort with talking death didn’t prepare me for the living side of dying. Sam did not deny his dying, but looking back I think I was grabbing at a way to do it for him. It’s hard for me to admit now. Until you watch someone you love slowly die, it’s hard to understand how tempting and easy it is for death denial to creep into your actions.
I rationally accepted Sam’s death, but my emotional side, my attachment to Sam and his presence in my life, made me grasp impotently at ways to make him not really be dying; to hold on a little longer. It blew up in my face. My death denial not only threw Sam’s dying in his face, it made him feel lonely.
When he eagerly opened my gifts amidst the excitement of the family and grandchildren opening theirs, his face fell. He furrowed his brown. He smiled at me with love and appreciation, but there wasn’t enthusiasm behind it. It was forced.
I’d chosen to give him a bunch of small gifts that I figured he could enjoy now not later. Small packages of favorite delicacies – smoked abalone, his favorite candies he’d often mentioned he could rarely find anymore, other edible treats that his illness still allowed him to relish. I also enclosed a note, a heartfelt outpouring of what he meant to me.
Before some of you come to my defense, as many have when I’ve retold this story, or come to the defense of such gifts, know that it wasn’t so much the items but what it transmitted to Sam. Inadvertently the items, and maybe more the note, communicated to Sam that somehow I’d pulled away. You’re dying, here are the shadows of the gifts I would actually have given you if I knew your life was not ending soon.
In my attempt to “fix” the unfixable situation of his death, I had given him things that felt “safe”. I had put on the brakes. In effect, the gifts were, to put it plainly, weird. The embodiment of flailing in the face of grief; not the sense of continuity and normalcy he craved. Even while I had wrapped those gifts, my gut knew better. But I ignored what I knew of Sam and the guidance Sam had given me in favor of my own comfort.
Many people have said I’m being too hard on myself. Our relationship was not destroyed or even really altered by those gifts. Maybe I am being too overwrought and self-flagellating. But when Sam looked at the assortment of edible trinkets I’d given him, his loneliness was palpable. I will never forget his withdrawn face as he quietly put the gifts into the basket on his walker. He was with me, with his loved ones, but he was not with us.
I know I didn’t do that to him. But I helped to take him out of the moment, and the pain I brought to his attention haunts me. Maybe it’s not rational, it’s indicative of some greater anxiety I need to confront, but it’s the truth.
Dying is lonely. When we who are not actively dying must stand with our loved ones who are dying, we feel the responsibility and the desire to make it less lonely for them. We can only do this to some extent. But we can exacerbate it, even with the greatest of intentions. Often with the greatest of intentions.
The moment with the gifts was fast. As quickly as it happened, it was over. The rest of Christmas was unremarkable in its joy. In that regard, I think Sam got his wish.
Months after his death, I was visiting my husband’s childhood home, the home that Sam and his partner shared, and I came across a box of Sam’s stuff in the laundry room. In it was a book he had been reading, his glasses, and most of the gifts I’d given him. Unopened, untouched. The candies however, were gone. I hope he enjoyed them, that they were a taste of normal.
I don’t offer this story as instruction. What happened with Sam was something I struggled to put into words. What was or was not right for him, is not an indication of what is right or not right for another person in the same situation. But it was something I felt totally unprepared for. Something that I suspect few people actually are prepared for.
I’ve come to learn that that was and is no crime. Being death positive does not mean having all the answers or being impervious to mistakes in handling death and dying. Perhaps it means we choose to grapple with discomfort in a way that culture generally does not condone.
I’m still grappling.
I don’t know what I would have done differently. In thinking about what would have been better, a more suitable gift for Sam, I still come up empty. Sometimes I wonder if I should have just given him the kitchen gadgets I knew he wanted, despite my fear that it would be hurtful. I think so many of the missteps I made during Sam’s dying, this and others, came from me being too much in my head; worried about my issues. I knew what Sam wanted, but I second guessed him.
Gift-giving in the shadow of death can be such a bitter-sweet act, maybe an act that demands a kind of selflessness many of us are ill-equipped to process. I know that for me, I confused how much a person treasures something with the length of time they treasure it.
Have any of you ever had to give gifts, either during the holidays or for other occasions, to a dying loved one? What did you do? How did you decide what to give? How did it work out?
*Name changed to respect the family’s privacy.
Louise Hung is an American writer living in Japan. You may remember her from xoJane’s Creepy Corner, Global Comment, or from one of her many articles on death, folklore, or cats floating around the Internet. Follow her on Twitter.
If you enjoyed this piece, please consider supporting our work. Your contribution goes directly toward running The Order, including resources, research, paying our writers and staff, and funding more frequent content. We’d love to keep pushing the funerary envelope in 2018. Visit our Support Us page, for a variety of easy ways to contribute.
What I Wish I’d Given Him: Grappling With Gifts For a Dying Family
February 16, 2018
February 10, 2018
The Year of Action Resource Guide
Do you feel like our current death system is a wee bit broken? Would you like to see death and funerals be more inclusive, more intimate, more meaningful? You are very not alone. In fact, you are part of a movement of people all across the world.
Maybe you know you want to help things change, but don’t know how to help.
Our advice: just start. The action you take can be simple, creating your own death plan and helping others do the same. It may be tempting to think, “If I’m not becoming a mortician or starting a conservation burial site or investing in a resomator so I can aquamate my hometown [after they die], then what am I even doing?” But those huge undertakings (pun intended) aren’t the beginning and the end of the movement. If all you ever do is work with your family (parents, chosen family, online family, whoever they are) to create death plans with them, you’ve done something that is vital and exemplary. Throughout the year we’ll be rolling out inspiration, ideas, and concrete things you can do during this Year of Action. When the right bit of inspiration comes to you, you’ll know it!
A warning: Once people find their passion in the death community, they tend to become very involved. But we want you to be happy, balanced advocates with income and sanity and meaningful relationships. When considering how you take action, we only ask that you are truthful with yourself about how much you can handle and how far you can push yourself. Truly, the best way you can promote the movement is by taking action in a way that best serves YOUR strengths, passions, and talents.
A second warning: Again, while becoming an alternative mortician may seem glamorous (kidding, no one thinks it’s glamorous) it’s not for everyone. Watch “EASY STEPS to becoming an Alternative Mortician” before you decide you want to pursue a full career in this work.
Below is a list to get you started. It is by no means complete or exhaustive. There’s a ton of specific good opportunities out there we couldn’t list, like “Wix for Death” website builder or “The Organization for Death Positive Arabian Horse Owners, Manitoba Chapter.” (Ok we made those up.) Maybe those are your calling. Whatever it is, we’re excited to see how you choose to take action.
Yours in life and death,
Caitlin, Sarah, & Louise
Hospice Training
Whether you’d just like to volunteer or if you are seriously considering pursuing a career in hospice care, volunteering with seasoned professionals is the place to start. Hospice training requires long hours and a commitment to serve people on both their good and bad days. While hospice workers must be comfortable with working in close proximity to death and dying, being comfortable with mortality is not the only requirement. A hospice worker must have a genuine desire to serve people, be both emotionally engaged but also keep a professional distance; have sympathy for people at their best and worst; not pass judgements on how a person chooses to die.
Hospice work is grueling, both mentally and physically taxing, and takes a huge time commitment. Hospice volunteering is not quite so intense of course, but it still asks for a similar level of emotional and mental fortitude.
Some hospice organizations to look into in the United States:
National Hospice and Palliative Care Foundation
Hospice Training UK
Grief Support/Supporting Others in Grief
The methods to support someone in grief are rather simple. But simple, as our friend Megan Devine has said, does not necessarily mean easy. Having something like a “script” can help. More likely than not, there will come a time when we would like to be there for a loved one who is grieving. Educating oneself in how to be a companion to someone in the midst of grief could be one of the most useful things you can learn as a death positive advocate.
How to Help a Grieving Friend, Megan Devine
Train as a Home-Funeral Facilitator
Home funeral facilitators may do a variety of work, including being present during the actual dying process or coming into help support a family to care for a body at home. As this role is unlegislated there is no official national certifying board or “certification,” but there are many workshops and classes you can take to help understand the laws and learn how to care for a body.
Our funeral home Undertaking LA, offers home death care workshops. Learn more here.
National Home Funeral Alliance, list of teachers in United States, Canada, and New Zealand
Post-Death Care Education
Canadian Integrative Network for Death Education and Alternatives (CINDEA)
— “Post-Death Care at Home” Video Series
— General Timeline for Post-Death Care and Arrangements PDF
— Post-Death Physical Care PDF
Death Doula
Order member Cassandra Yonder shares her story about the experience that inspired her to become a death midwife and start her BEyond Yonder Virtual School For Death Midwifery
Open Center, End of Life Doula Training
Death Doula Training in the UK
Get Involved as a Funeral Assistant UK
Poetic Endings, funeral service (London)
Pet Hospice and Palliative Care Training
Unless you are a licensed veterinarian, you cannot become a certified pet hospice and palliative care practitioner. However, if animals are important to you, that does not mean that you shouldn’t educate yourself in what is involved in pet hospice and palliative care. A clear understanding of how an animal experiences death can only benefit future pets or animals you help.
International Association for Animal Hospice and Palliative Care
— Webinars
Spirits in Transition, “options in end-of-life care for our companion animals”
Maria Ionova-Gribina’s Natura Morta
Green Pet Burial
Not everybody knows that green burial is an option for their beloved pets, a lot of your work will be getting the word out. Getting involved with a green pet cemetery could mean volunteering with an actual burial ground, raising awareness by talking with veterinarians or other animal organizations, or it could mean helping with fundraising.
Volunteer at a Green/Natural/Conservation Cemetery
As a volunteer at a green/natural/conservation burial site there are number of things you could end up helping accomplish. You might help set up for a funeral, you might help run a funeral, you may actually help bury a person. You could be photocopying programs or putting up flyers. Point is, you may actually get to work in the cemetery, you may not. Most places will likely let you get involved on the grounds if you ask. But realize that there’s more than just burial involved in operating a smoothly running cemetery.
Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery
Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve
Green Burial Council International
— contact
Cemetery Preservation
Not only will you learn a lot about the history of graves, headstones, and cemeteries, but you will see firsthand how badly some cemeteries need to be protected. Although the first thing that comes to mind regarding cemetery preservation might be tasks like scrubbing graves, clearing overgrowth or garbage, or repairing headstones, there are many different ways to contribute. From transcribing old handwritten cemetery records so they can be accessible to historians, genealogists and families online, to fulfilling photograph requests from family members who are unable to travel to visit a loved one’s grave.
National Center for Preservation Technology and Training
Start Your Own Green Burial Ground
Depending on where you live the process could prove to be quite complicated, but completely worthwhile if you’re up for a challenge.
Order member, Pia Interlandi
Creating Shrouds
Creating your own or someone else’s shroud can be a meaningful experience that adds a personal touch to mourning. Shrouds can be as simple or as personal and elaborate as you wish.
CINDEA, Designs and Sewing Patterns for Shrouds
Getting into Funeral Service or Attending Mortuary School
American Board of Funeral Service Education
— FAQ
Planning a Funeral, Planning for End of Life
The death positive movement is obsessed with helping you help inside your own community. Talking about death, thinking about death, planning for death, making sure your loved ones are taken care of – these are the things that are at the core of the death positive revolution. This could be some of the toughest action you could take, but also the most important. And if you plan for death and talk with people about it, you might embolden and inspire others to do the same. Look at you advocating for a death positivity!
The Order’s Funeral and End of Life Planning Resource Guide
Undertaking LA Planning a Funeral Worksheet
UK funeral planning, The Natural Death Centre
Australia, Natural Death Advocacy Network
Getting your end of life documents in order, GYST
“12 Tough Questions to Ask Your Parents”
The Conversation Project Starter Kits (health care proxy, talking to your doctor, conversations with an ill child, Alzheimer’s patient)
Donate Your Body, Organs
You may go your whole life never feeling like you got your hands dirty in the death positive movement, but if you willing and able to donate your organs or body to medicine or research, it could be one of the most death positive things you could ever do. Not only could you save a life, but with the gift of your body you might allow scientists to better understand decomposition and how a body reacts in extreme situations. Your death could help solve crimes! It should be noted that not all body donation organizations are the same (and neither are all “body farms”). If you know of a specific way that you want your body to be used for research, take the time to find a facility that does that work. Also, make sure your family knows that they may never get your remains back.
Home Funerals and Organ Donation
Organ, Eye, Tissue Donation
Donate Life America – also Vascularized Composite Allografts (VCAs) “the transplantation of multiple structures that may include skin, bone, muscles, blood vessels, nerves and connective tissue.”
MTF Biologics – Bone, organ, eye, skin, VCAs donation
Human Decomposition Research Facilities “Body Farms”
University of Tennessee Forensic Anthropology Center, body donation
Western Carolina University, Forensic Anthropology Facilities
Texas State University, Forensic Anthropology Center
Southeast Texas Applied Forensic Science Facility
University of South Florida, Forensics
Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Complex for Forensic Anthropology Research
Colorado Mesa University, Forensic Investigation Research Station
You get out there, deathlings! We’ve got a lot of work to do.
If you enjoyed this piece, please consider supporting our work. Your contribution goes directly toward running The Order, including resources, research, paying our writers and staff, and funding more frequent content. We’d love to keep pushing the funerary envelope in 2018. Visit our Support Us page, for a variety of easy ways to contribute.
February 3, 2018
UNEARTHING GORINI, THE PETRIFIER
Many years ago, as I had just begun to explore the history of medicine and anatomical preparations, I became utterly fascinated with the so-called “petrifiers”: 19th and early 20th century anatomists who carried out obscure chemical procedures in order to give their specimens an almost stone-like, everlasting solidity. Their purpose was to solve two problems at once: the constant shortage of corpses to dissect, and the issue of hygiene problems (yes, back in the time dissection was a messy deal). Each petrifier perfected his own secret formula to achieve virtually incorruptible anatomical preparations: the art of petrifaction became an exquisitely Italian specialty, a branch of anatomy that flourished due to a series of cultural, scientific and political factors.
When I first encountered the figure of Paolo Gorini (1813-1881), I made the mistake of assuming his work was very similar to that of his fellow petrifiers. But as soon as I stepped foot inside the wonderful Gorini Collection in Lodi, near Milan, I was surprised at how few scientifically-oriented preparations it contained: most specimens were actually whole, undissected human heads, feet, hands, infants, etc. It struck me that these were not meant as medical studies: they were attempts at preserving the body forever. Was Gorini looking for a way to have the deceased transformed into a genuine statue? Why? I needed to know more.
A biographical research is a mighty strange experience: digging into the past in search of someone’s secret is always an enterprise doomed to failure. No matter how much you read about a person’s life, their deepest desires and dreams remain forever inaccessible. And yet, the more I examined books, papers, documents about Paolo Gorini, the more I felt I could somehow relate to this man’s quest.
Yes, he was an eccentric genius. Yes, he lived alone in his ghoulish laboratory, surrounded by “the bodies of men and beasts, human limbs and organs, heads with their hair preserved […], items made from animal substances for use as chess or draughts pieces; petrified livers and brain tissue, hardened skin and hides, nerve tissue from oxen, etc.”. And yes, he somehow enjoyed incarnating the mad scientist character, especially among his bohemian friends – writers and intellectuals who venerated him. But there was more.
It was necessary to strip away the legend from the man. So, as one of Gorini’s greatest passions was geology, I approached him as if he was a planet: progressing deeper and deeper, through the different layers of crust that make up his stratified enigma. The outer layer was the one produced by mythmaking folklore, nourished by whispered tales, by fleeting glimpses of horrific visions and by popular rumors. “The Magician”, they called him. The man who could turn bodies into stone, who could create mountains from molten lava (as he actually did in his “experimental geology” public demonstrations). The layer immediately beneath that unveiled the image of an “anomalous” scientist who was, however, well rooted in the Zeitgeist of his times, its spirit and its disputes, with all the vices and virtues derived therefrom. The most intimate layer – the man himself – will perhaps always be a matter of speculation. And yet certain anecdotes are so colorful that they allowed me to get a glimpse of his fears and hopes.
Still, I didn’t know why I felt so strangely close to Gorini.
His preparations sure look grotesque and macabre from our point of view. He had access to unclaimed bodies at the morgue, and could experiment on an inconceivable number of corpses (“For most of my life I have substituted – without much discomfort – the company of the dead for the company of the living…”), and many of the faces that we can see in the Museum are those of peasants and poor people. This is the reason why so many visitors might find the Collection in Lodi quite unsettling, as opposed to a more “classic” anatomical display.
And yet, here is what looks like a macroscopic incongruity: near the end of his life, Gorini patented the first really efficient crematory. His model was so good it was implemented all over the world, from London to India. One could wonder why this man, who had devoted his entire life to making corpses eternal, suddenly sought to destroy them through fire.
Evidently, Gorini wasn’t fighting death; his crusade was against putrefaction.
When Paolo was only 12 years old, he saw his own father die in a horrific carriage accident. He later wrote: “That day was the black point of my life that marked the separation between light and darkness, the end of all joy, the beginning of an unending procession of disasters. From that day onwards I felt myself to be a stranger in this world…” The thought of his beloved father’s body, rotting inside the grave, probably haunted him ever since. “To realize what happens to the corpse once it has been closed inside its underground prison is a truly horrific thing. If we were somehow able to look down and see inside it, any other way of treating the dead would be judged as less cruel, and the practice of burial would be irreversibly condemned.”
That’s when it hit me.
This was exactly what made his work so relevant: all Gorini was really trying to do was elaborate a new way of dealing with the “scandal” of dead bodies. He was tirelessly seeking a more suitable relationship with the remains of missing loved ones. For a time, he truly believed petrifaction could be the answer. Who would ever resort to a portrait – he thought – when a loved one could be directly immortalized for all eternity? Gorini even suggested that his petrified heads be used to adorn the gravestones of Lodi’s cemetery – an unfortunate but candid proposal, made with the most genuine conviction and a personal sense of pietas. (Needless to say this idea was not received with much enthusiasm.)
Gorini was surely eccentric and weird but, far from being a madman, he was also cherished by his fellow citizens in Lodi, on the account of his incredible kindness and generosity. He was a well-loved teacher and a passionate patriot, always worried that his inventions might be useful to the community.Therefore, as soon as he realized that petrifaction might well have its advantages in the scientific field, but it was neither a practical nor a welcome way of dealing with the deceased, he turned to cremation.
Redefining the way we as a society interact with the departed, bringing attention to the way we treat bodies, focusing on new technologies in the death field – all these modern concerns were already at the core of his research.
He was a man of his time, but also far ahead of it. Gorini the scientist and engineer, devoted to the destiny of the dead, would paradoxically encounter more fertile conditions today than in the 20th century. It’s not hard to imagine him enthusiastically experimenting with alkaline hydrolysis or other futuristic techniques of treating human remains. And even if some of his solutions, such as his petrifaction procedures, are now inevitably dated and detached from contemporary attitudes, they do still seem to have been the beginning of a still pertinent urge and of a research that continues today.
The Petrifier is the fifth volume of the Bizzarro Bazar Collection . Text (both in Italian and English) by Ivan Cenzi, photographs by Carlo Vannini.
Ivan Cenzi is an explorer of the uncanny and collector of curiosities. Since 2009 he has been curator of Bizzarro Bazar, a blog dedicated to all things strange, macabre and wonderful.
February 2, 2018
January 26, 2018
January 25, 2018
What Death Positive is NOT
For the first few years I was an advocate for reform in the death industry, I used phrases like “death awareness” and “death acceptance” to describe the movement I was a part of. After all, these were the terms used since the 1970s by scholars and practitioners.
I became “death positive” almost by accident. It started with a tweet, asking why we had movements like body positivity and sex positivity, but we couldn’t use that same umbrella to be forward thinking about our own deaths. People began to respond to the tweet, and the term took off. As an advocate, you go where the enthusiasm and momentum take you, and the term death positivity was challenging and necessary.
I would never tell you to self-identify as death positive. Even if you share all of our principles (laid out here), and support our advocacy, that may not mean you want to align with the movement. That’s fair! But I’ve noticed some misconceptions about the movement’s purpose and values lately, and I want to make sure our stance is clear.
Art by Erin Hancox http://www.erin-hanx.co.uk/epitaphs
Myth One:
The movement is driven by people sharing their hashtags and goth fashion on Instagram.
First of all, if you’re implying that if a person styles themselves in darker, alternative fashion this makes them less serious of an intellectual or advocate, I’m gonna stop you right there. That assumption is outdated and sloppy. Must everyone wear tweed and elbow patches to prove their bonafides as activists? Spoiler: Many of the people wearing too much black for your sensibilities are the same folks on the front lines as hospice nurses, lawyers, archeologists, etc. As our director Sarah Chavez says, this line of thinking is a convenient way to “dismiss and diminish the voices of women in the movement by labeling them ‘goth.’”
The other hypothesis here is that death positivity is #slacktavism, a movement of slacktavism, a movement of art and visuals with no real world implications. Au contraire. Death positivity has always put the needs of the family and the dead body first. That means fighting for real change at the legislative and regulatory levels, as well as in the trenches in the funeral and hospice industries.
Our movement has lobbied for laws like AB-967, legalizing aquamation, the emerging greener death technology, and the End of Life Option Act, allowing terminally ill people to end their lives on their own terms.
Our movement lobbied against bills like the one before the Virginia house that would have made it almost impossible for families to keep their dead loved ones at home for more than 48 hours. This would have violated religious rights as well as the basic rights of the family to choose their own style of funeral.
Opening and running funeral homes that fundamentally change the way the business of death is handled hasn’t been easy (or lucrative, or glamorous), but members of our movement are making it happen all around the world. There are also thousands of people who don’t work in the death industry, but educate and make choices at the local level that re-shape the death industry.
People from all over the world are in constant contact, describing the ways they are engaging their own communities on rituals and empowerment that are meaningful to them (which may look entirely different than what is needed in America– and that’s the point!)
The strength of our movement is in its diversity, and you are welcome no matter how you dress or identify. We have a lot of work to do to change how death is handled and regulated– come with your enthusiasm and skills, and come as you are.
From the campaign for the End of Life Option Act.
Myth Two:
The movement lionizes the ideal of “the good death,” ignoring the many who suffer bad deaths.
For me, this is the concern that needs, and deserves, the most unpacking.
Yes, our organization is called The Order of the Good Death, and we encourage discussion on how to achieve the good death. But a huge part of that discussion is the structural inequality that makes it more difficult for certain groups to obtain the death or funeral they might desire. Not all deaths are created equal. Openly acknowledging this allows us to place our focus on this reality, and work to change it.
A “good death” is personal. A person defines it, a family defines it, a community defines it, a culture defines. My good death may look nothing like your good death. We are not here to define a good death, only support you in achieving yours. If you don’t achieve my good death, or someone else’s good death, this does not mean you have failed. There is no failure, only the timeless human attempt to leave this world on your own terms.
If you’re only exposure to the death positive movement is an article in a major newspaper about a man who took his last breaths as his daughter played acoustic guitar, before his body is carried by his family in a gorgeous wicker casket to a grave dug on the property, you might not always see your own experience reflected. That’s ok, a lot of people feel that way. That’s why there are so many incredible people in our movement writing, advocating, and speaking out about trans rights in death, the devastating mortality rates of black mothers, the strain funerals create for low income families, the impossible hurdles created by dying as an immigrant.
We don’t believe that we should accept bad deaths, especially in our current political climate, as a fixed condition. We should be allowing communities to define what a “good death” means to them, the very real barriers that exist to realizing a good death, and examining and dismantling those barriers. This discovery is a key part of the death positive movement.
19th century Japanese print of last offices being performed on the dead.
Myth Three:
I cannot be afraid to die, or be in the midst of grief, and still be death positive.
If someone tells me they’re not afraid of death, completely free of fear, I’m skeptical. Death is messy and complicated, and your relationship with it is ever-changing. Death positivity isn’t about cultivating a zealous cult like mentality, it’s about meeting people where they are. There is no end goal in being death positive, where if you get enough posi-points you are awarded the golden skull of death acceptance. There is only the process of living as a human with the incredible burden of death.
Louise Hung, who works as a writer with the Order, said this: “what the movement has done for me is allow me to function within, in spite of, and through my monstrous mortality fears. I try to explain this to people all the time. And it’s what shocks people most about this work. That it’s not about being fearless, it’s about finding a way into that fear and through some alchemy, turning it into something valuable in life. Even if that fear never goes away.”
Grief is also an ongoing process. Sarah Chavez, our director, experienced the death of a child several years ago. She says that “just because someone is death positive, doesn’t mean they don’t struggle and aren’t terribly afraid. It’s just that taking responsibility for those fears, picking them apart, and not allowing them to control you, can save you or someone else.”
Again, there is no hierarchy of emotions here. A person can feel in full control of their fears one day, and lose a friend or family member the next. I love using humor to engage death. That doesn’t mean I won’t be crying the next morning. Death contains multitudes, just as humans contain multitudes, just as emotions contain multitudes. Life is a wild journey, and death positive means riding the never ending waves, not climbing a single peak.
*~*~*~*
These myths are baffling to me, as they stand so opposed to the origins (and current work!) being done with death positivity. However, I have faith in the intellectual honesty of the people who believe them. They are not willfully misrepresenting death positivity for their own gain, it is that we are somehow not making our work clear and accessible enough that everyone feels welcome. I hope we change that as the work continues in 2018.
I can see the challenges on the horizon, the challenges that plague every movement attempting to enact genuine good. Flippant press pieces mischaracterizing death positivity, tweets saying death positivity has changed, blogs saying that it’s become too commercial. Can you already see the headlines?: the life-cycle of social movements can be predicted almost to the letter. So why persevere? Because we’ve seen, again and again, the impact this dialogue can have of people’s lives and deaths. I am proud to be a part of this movement, and am eternally grateful to the inspiring and genuine people around me that push me to be a better advocate and person.
Caitlin Doughty's Blog
- Caitlin Doughty's profile
- 8408 followers
