Death's Summer Coat Quotes

“Whether we count ourselves as believers or non-believers, we should not fear choosing from the practices of the past for our ongoing traditions. The point is that we should be able to choose: to think about what we want, what we need, to discuss our choice with others and to let it help us when the time comes”
― Brandy Schillace, Death's Summer Coat

“In eighteenth-century France, when someone died in a village, a message would be sent to the bell-ringer. The change ringing that followed would give the age and sex of the deceased, so that you truly knew ‘for whom the bell tolled’.”
― Brandy Schillace, Death's Summer Coat

“Death, when kept so near, ceases to threaten us, ceases to be alien. Ritual, when embraced, can be the means to healing and to progressing through grief for the living who remain. After all, understanding is built through exploration and comparison.”
― Brandy Schillace, Death's Summer Coat

“Contemporary Western culture is built on denial and fear of death rather than acceptance of and preparation for it. But this view is actually rather recent. Most westerners, for most of our history, did not share it. They were not caught between eternal and disposable; they were able to hold those two ideas, event and process, easily in their minds at once.”
― Brandy Schillace, Death's Summer Coat

“Death is a balancing act: we know it will happen to us, to those we love, and yet we live in denial. That denial often leaves us entirely unprepared for the other element of death: grief.”
― Brandy Schillace, Death's Summer Coat

“We cannot wait until death happens to talk about death. It’s a bit like waiting until winter to gather in the grain. Why not meet now, talk now, while the sun is still warm on your back? That’s the value of the death’s summer coat.”
― Brandy Schillace, Death's Summer Coat