Dying inside
Our prison system is a seldom explored area of death and dying. In fact, little is known about what goes on in our prisons, mostly because people don’t care enough about those inside to be remotely interested in what happens to them. This doesn’t surprise me. Crime angers people. But I’ve spent time in prisons […]
Cross patch
We must hope that spending cuts will result in the excision of not just waste but also the sort of local authority insensitivity which manifests as brainless heartlessness. Here’s an example from Somerset as told by the Daily Mail: Liz Maggs placed a 26-inch high wooden cross bearing a personal inscription on Rosemary Maggs’ burial […]
Get Low
Here’s a very interesting looking new film. Synopsis follows. Hat-tip to Liam Roberts for this. For years, townsfolk have been terrified of the backwoods recluse known as Felix Bush. People say he’s done all manner of unspeakable things — that he’s killed in cold blood; that he’s in league with the Devil; that he has […]
The terrible price of longevity
Here’s an incredibly powerful and superbly written account from the New York Times about the consequences of life-extending interventions by medics. It begins: One October afternoon three years ago while I was visiting my parents, my mother made a request I dreaded and longed to fulfill. She had just poured me a cup of Earl Grey […]
Nokanshi
I had an email today from someone in Atlanta, Georgia USA. Is there any funeral home in this area, she wondered, that practises nokanshi. I explained that I couldn’t help: the GFG is UK-based. Then I googled nokanshi. And discovered that it is the ritual preparation, in Japan, of the body for cremation. There’s a […]
Last Portrait of Mother
In case you missed it, Daphne Todd’s portrait of her dead mother won the BP Portrait Award. There is a good account of how it came to be painted and why in the Independent here.
Hardening of the heart
What happens to the minds of those who deal with death every day? How do they cope with the endless procession of grieving people and dead bodies? Is it emotionally healthy to specialise in death? Isn’t undertaking something best combined with a therapeutic something else – a little landscape gardening or, in the case of […]
Test drive it first…
Here’s an intelligent, beautifully written piece from Salon magazine in which the writer describes the consequences of his father’s final request No. 5: “My body is to be placed in a plain pine box. I would like my children to make the box.” In his last years my father, the writer William Manchester, told me, […]
Does poetry make nothing happen?
The Tide Recedes The tide recedes, but leaves behind Bright seashells on the sand. The sun goes down, but gentle warmth Still lingers on the land. The music stops, and yet it lingers On in sweet refrain. For every joy that passes Something beautiful remains. MD Hughes What do you think of that little poem? […]
Hollowing out hallowed ground
Some interesting reflections here on humankind’s relationship with the dead human body and the forces of nature. I especially enjoyed the observation that the prairie dogs happily digging in this cemetery are no respecters of social status: they have even dug up a state governor. What deplorable absence of deference so far down the food chain! Hat-tip […]
