There are certain drawbacks to living in a civilized society.Don't get me wrong, there are scads and scads of benefits, but withtechnology, conveniences and controlled medicine comes a certainremoval from the basic, often brutal truths of life.
How many of you have seen someone die? I mean, close enough towatch the light go out of their eyes, to hear the last breath? Notvery many, I suspect. How many of you have actually seen a deadperson, outside of an open-casket funeral. You see what I'm gettingat here? It might sound morbid, but it's something that's been onmy mind lately. Must be the season.
There aren't a lot of taboos in this day and age. Okay, well,compared to Victorian times, or the 1940's, there aren't a lot oftaboos. Yet somehow we've managed to make death into a verbotentopic. Sex is pretty much par for the course as dinner conversationgoes, but a serious or semi-serious discussion of death? You'dbetter have some very close friends and a lot of wine. Otherwise,people are going to clam up and search for a reason to head homeearly. Unless it comes suddenly, or violently, we tend to know whendeath is approaching, and we get the soon-to-be-departed into ahospital. If we witness their departure, it's in the sterile andclosely controlled hospital environment, and nobody touches therecently departed (there's that word again. Like someone waitingfor a train) after death. They hide 'em away, paint 'em up -- orburn 'em -- and that's that. Go say hello to the headstone.
Kind of impersonal for a phenomenon which is pretty muchguaranteed to happen to you sometime in the next ninety years orso. Now, I know my mother and father sat me down at the tender ageof thirteen and talked very frankly with me about sex, and why Imight one day want to try it. To the best of my knowledge, though,they never actually came out and explained death. It was that thingthat happened when no one was looking, that everyone heard aboutlater. Sure, I could have been sheltered, but I asked severalpeople of my age the same question -- were you ever told what deathwas all about -- and got back answers very similar to my own.
So what the heck? Should we have a Death Ed class in school? Iknow BSU actually runs a Death and Dying class, but isn't it a bitlate at this point? No one ever bothered to show me a "Miracle ofDeath" film in high school, or take me to visit a funeral home, oreven to tell me the most vital and confusing truth about death anddying: We don't know why it happens.
Do we want our children to grow up in this sterile environment?Do we want to ignore it, and hope it will go away? I don't know,and it's not my place to decide. Ask your government. Ask yourfellow citizens. Just ... not during a social situation.Y'know?
Death is the only god who comes when you call.
Write to Jonathan attenement_cellar@msn.com
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