Only over my dead body: Why prepare for death in advance
"I COME CONVENIENTLY ON THE SOFA WITH A CUP OF TEA and I want you to be comfortable too - because now we will discuss your inevitableCAP AND DECAY- This is how Kaitlin Douty, the owner of the progressive funeral home, the writer and founder of the Order of the Good Death, begins one of her first videos. Douti, the ideologist of the movement for a positive attitude towards death (death positivity): on the "Ask A Mortician" blog, she answers all sorts of questions about dying, the deceased and the funeral, telling jokes, dispelling myths about ritual business and leading the audience to admit that death is this is as much a part of life as going to college or brushing your teeth. With only one difference: you can not walk in pairs, you can not brush your teeth, but death cannot be avoided by anyone.
Despite this, in modern culture it is not customary to talk about death: the topic is considered “gloomy”, and the interest in it is “unhealthy”. Death is shown on TV every day, which makes it seem more distant and unreal. As a result, in the event of the death of a loved one, we are at a loss, we agree to all the funeral procedures, considering them to be an inevitable evil, do not know how to experience grief, and we prefer not to think about our own death. Although in all other spheres of life, awareness has become the norm, we easily shift the care of our own body after others to others - this is just one of the consequences of silence that the death positivity movement is fighting against.
We all die - and do not worry
Supporters and supporters of a positive attitude towards death do not at all consider that going into another world is the main event in life, and they do not worship death, as supporters of the well-known Mexican cult. They only argue that the system of taboos and conventions around this topic is harmful to society and something needs to be done about it.
The fear of death feeds the cult of youth and ageism, unrealistic standards of beauty and the multimillion-dollar industry of cosmetology and plastic surgery, and also encourages infantilism: a ban on thoughts of your own mortality allows you to indefinitely postpone serious decisions and unpleasant conversations, prostrastinate and drown out the horror of small everyday affairs. From the point of view of physiology, the fear of death is normal - it makes us take care of our own safety, remember to sleep and eat, to respond quickly in the event of a threat. However, it is important to distinguish between rational fear of dying, protecting us from real dangers, and fear of the very idea of death: understanding that you are not eternal is an important part of growing up, it motivates us to engage in creativity, have children and do something useful for society.
“A positive attitude to death does not mean that you should happily respond to your mother’s death,” explains Douchi. “This means that it’s normal to be interested in the topic of death. It’s normal to plan your own funeral, to think about alternative ways of burial or cremation. It’s not„ gloomy “And not ashamed."
What is wrong with ritual business
The funeral industry is viewed with suspicion, and not without reason. Obsessive ritual agents who pump money out of a grieving family, awkward ceremonies, numerous formalities and legal details related to the conduct of a person to the other world are all real flaws in the funeral business, and they are associated with the culture of denying death. Researchers belonging to the Order of the Good Death note that before the appearance of professionals at the beginning of the 20th century who were ready to take all the cares of the body and the funeral, the people’s relationship with death was much simpler: the deceased family member remained in the house until the funeral, the relatives were preparing for the burial, and the dead body did not cause such horror as in modern townspeople.
The main reason for fear, as is often the case, is the lack of information. Doughty is struggling with this, telling in detail about what happens to the body after death, and about cultures in which deceased relatives are treated with no less warmth than during their lifetime.
Many are convinced that the dead body becomes dangerous and you can get something from it - but this is not so: WHO experts confirm that the corpse is no more dangerous than a living person, and there is no reason to rush into burial for security reasons. Most of the pathogens in the dead body die within a couple of hours, and the really dangerous diseases that can be transmitted from the dead to the living are very rare: one of them is Ebola, whose symptoms can not be overlooked.
Embalming is a matter of many questions - in fact, a cosmetic procedure for preserving the body: all the blood is pumped out, replacing it with a formaldehyde solution - and if the body fluids secreted by the body are usually not dangerous, then formaldehyde and other substances that are used by embalmers are toxic and cause serious damage. the environment (and also most likely carcinogenic).
Take death into your own hands
A healthy attitude to death assumes that you will not act according to the principle “after me even a flood” and will spend a small part of your life planning to leave it. Supporters of the death positivity are advised to start small: you can imagine what a "good death" is for you and what actions you can take to come to such a result. “It's just a matter of values. Do you want to die without pain, at home, so that your finances are in order, and your ashes are dispelled in the forest? This will not happen by itself. In order for these desires to be fulfilled, planning and open conversation are necessary,” emphasizes Douchi .
In Russian legislation, there is the concept of "the will of a person about a decent attitude to his body after death" - this cumbersome wording means only a wish written on paper or expressed in the presence of witnesses. It has legal force, that is, you can tell your friends what to do with your body in the event of your death, and by law they will have to bury you that way, unless there are very good reasons to do otherwise.
Expression of will will greatly facilitate the task of your loved ones: they will not have to guess which way of burial you would choose, and spend money on optional rituals if you are totally against ribbons, wreaths and other decorations. Sometimes a lack of expression can be a problem: for example, in the widely discussed case of Jennifer Gable, a transgender woman who, to the dismay of the LGBT community, was buried under a male name, with a short haircut, no makeup and a man's suit. This happened because, in the absence of the will, the deceased father received the right to dispose of her body as a conservative father, who did not accept his daughter’s transgender nature.
Conscious choice of the method of burial can be a way of expression and continue the principles that you adhere to in life. In Western countries, green burials are gaining popularity: the bodies are not embalmed, but simply buried in shallow graves without concrete arches somewhere in the woods, so that the corpse can decompose in a natural way. People who aspire to awareness and rational consumption in life are faithful to these principles to the end - it is logical that they do not want to harm nature even after death.
Death and feminism
“Since feminism is just an idea that men and women are equal, it turns out that death has a direct connection with feminism: when you die, your body decomposes and turns into a pile of unrecognizable bones, and this happens with absolutely everyone. Equality in its pure form "- explains Doughty. This is a comic theory, but the movement’s gender focus is easy to notice: most of the members of the Order of Good Death are women, and they also dominate the tiny market for non-standard funeral services, although most traditional agencies are headed by men. Participants in the Death & the Maiden Association (Death and the Maiden) say that for them the work with the theme of death is activism: "So we declare our rights to personal space, our own body, our life and ourselves." They also note that “good death” is far from being available to everyone: every year thousands of women, LGBT people and ethnic minorities become victims of violence, and transgender people are threatened with the fate of Jennifer Gable. Death and its discussion are associated with many problems that supporters of death positivity refuse to ignore: it is a culture of violence, and social segregation, and problems of migrants, and attitude towards the elderly, and manipulative statements of the politicians.
Ritual business is a very closed and conservative area where women have a hard time. Historically, it was women who were engaged in the dead: they washed and dressed the body, acted as mourners, cooked food for commemoration, and sometimes went to the next world together with their dead husbands. Of course, all this did not involve payment - but when the funeral turned into a business, male domination was immediately established there. Today, more and more girls, inspired by death positivity, want to work in this area and change it for the better - but they first have to face the indignation of relatives ("Do you work with dead bodies, who will marry you?", "It's all teenage crap, go learn to a normal place "), and then with a dismissive attitude of colleagues who believe that a woman in a funeral home can only put on posthumous makeup or weave wreaths. Supporters of a healthy attitude towards death respond to this: "Victory of the patriarchy? Only through my dead body."
Cover: Paramount pictures
