A study in Finland (1996) found that men are 30% more likely to die in the first six months after the death of their partner, and 20% more likely to die thereafter.
Women, on the other hand, are 20% more likely to die in the first six months after the death of their partner, falling to under 10% thereafter.
What this tells us I have no idea.
Posted by Vale
I like these men and women who have to do with death,
Formal, gentle people whose job it is,
They mind their looks, they use words carefully.
I liked that woman in the sunny room
One after the other receiving such as me
Every working day. She asks the things she must
And thanks me for the answers. Then I don’t mind
Entering your particulars in little boxes,
I like the feeling she has seen it all before.
There is a form, there is a way. But also
That no one come to speak for a shade
Is like the last, I see she knows that too.
I’m glad there is a form to put your details in,
Your dates, the cause. Glad as I am of men
Who’ll make a trestle of their strong embrace
And in a slot between two other slots
Do what they have to every working day:
Carry another weight for someone else.
It is common. You are particular.
The poem is by David Constantine. It was found in Neil Astley’s Anthology Being Human. You can find it here. Hat tip to Sweetpea.
Posted by Vale
We were saying farewell to a very old lady – nearly 99 – who had spent her last years living in a care home. She had no family there and, apart from myself and the organist, there were just four people present, all of them members of staff from the Care Home.
It could have been perfunctory: decent, caring even, but a bit of a formality. In the event it was one of the most moving services I have ever been involved in.
It made me wonder where our feelings come from. We are involved in funerals all the time, why is it that, even if we are always engaged, empathetic, professional, there are some services – not always the most tragic – that carry an extra emotional charge?
For me the answer lies in the relationship we have with our clients. It looks straightforward, is usually quite brief, yet in my experience manages to contain all sorts of complexities.
What happens when you meet people – family, a group of friends, carers – for the first time? You bring experience, knowledge, expertise and a commitment to helping them shape the funeral that they need.
In return you receive a commission which is both practical and almost intangible. As you go off perhaps to find poetry and music, perhaps to write a tribute, you also carry with you a responsibility to be truthful to their feelings as they would like them represented at the funeral service.
It’s not always easy. You must in some measure set aside your own reactions to a death and even, on occasion, your own beliefs about the benefit of ‘good’ funerals. But in the end your only justification is to be truthful to their need. You reflect and are validated through their feelings. You depend on them in the same measure that they are depending on you.
In the case of my very elderly lady, although she had no family two of the carers had looked after her for twelve years, had grown to love her and were passionately concerned to give her the best and most feeling send off that they could manage.
So although there was no life story and only the smallest things to remember – a saying, a look, a turn of the head – her funeral was charged with mystery, love and, in the end, a sense that together we had been able to do what was needed.
Posted by Vale
At the Southbank Deathfest in January one of the best features was the wall that invited people to write down what it was that they wanted to do before they died.
The idea began in New Orleans when artist Candy Chang pasted the first ‘Before I Die’ wall on the side of an empty house.
You can see more about the first wall here.
Although it closed in September buy tadalafil 20mg uk 2011, the idea has spread all over the world including London. Interest has been so great that a website has been set up showing walls from across the world. It includes a kit for people to create their own before I die wall. Why not set one up near you? Something for one of those empty shopfronts on our derelict High Streets?
The kit can be found here.
Posted by Vale
When I was at school there was a short lived craze for making yourself faint. If I recall, you hyperventilated and then got a friend to squeeze you round the chest, at which point you passed out.
It’s now claimed that this is equivalent to a near death experience. There’s a discussion here, with descriptions of how to to do it (along with a firm warning about not trying them yourself).
Here at the GFG we don’t think it’s a very good idea either. It may be unsafe of course but we also disapprove because, while we believe strongly that people should prepare for death, self inducing a near death experience is, we feel, one of the less constructive approaches.
Religions have suggested alternatives. Hinduism promotes the idea that life has stages and that after the Celibate Student and Family Man the good Hindu will become a Hermit in Retreat and, finally, a Wandering Recluse. Not surprisingly it notes here that practice of the last two stages has become almost obsolete now.
The Christian tradition of meditating on the ‘Four Last Things’ (Death, Judgement, Hell and Heaven) may have more going for it.
Facing up to death, living with the knowledge of its inevitability, trying to prepare yourself all seem to me to be essential elements both of living and dying well. Meditating on Last Things would surely help prepare the mind.
But what Last Things might you meditate on? Death Judgement, Hell and Heaven don’t do it for me at all.
As an alternative I have started work on a personal list. It’s provisional at the moment but might include: meditation on ancestors and all that has made me the person I am; on the things that, from this vantage point, have turned out to matter; on the things that I have made or started; above all on everything that I have learned to love.
This feels like work in progress though. What would be amongst your Last Things?
Posted by Richard Rawlinson
Phyllis Bowman, founder of pro-life political lobbying organisation Right to Life died recently, aged 85. For half a century, right up to her final illness and last days, she fought tirelessly to save unborn babies from abortion and, more recently, against efforts to legalise euthanasia in Britain. Like other women who have given their lives to causes — Florence Nightingale, Emmeline Pankhurst, Mother Teresea, Sue Ryder — she was feisty and shrewd (see her blog http://phyllisbowman.blogspot.
Some here might not agree with her beliefs but is it not true that death is a great equaliser, a time when we admire someone’s convictions despite holding conflicting views? It’s also true that when an inspirational figure dies, admirers are motivated to continue the work. It’s as if death shows us how to appreciate people in a way we failed to do when they were alive.
The GFG website will be down for a period this evening for essential repairs. A man with a spanner, a hammer and a cold chisel needs to do some work on it.
It will descend to the realm of the dead and rise in glory.
From Swaziland:
MAFUCULA – Some mourners at the funeral of Lucky Nhlanhla Sifundza, the Royal Swaziland Sugar Corporation (RSSC) employee who went missing and was confirmed dead three weeks later, were disappointed that they could not see what was inside his casket.
They had hoped that the Sifundzas would open the casket and allow them to see what was inside before taking it to the cemetery.
They were interested in seeing the inside of the light-brown casket because they had heard that only the deceased’s clothes would be buried. His body was never found.
The funeral was at Mafucula community cemetery yesterday.
The area is situated about 30 kilometres from Tambankulu on the way to Mhlume.
As the vigil continued, some of the mourners kept asking one another if the casket would be opened so that they could see what was inside.
Attending the funeral were more than 300 people who included Lucky’s colleagues.
At around 4am, one of the elders of the family made an announcement that it was time for the family to start preparing for the burial.
Mourners waited with the hope that the clothes in the casket would be displayed.
This did not happen.
Dear Mr Tinning,
It’s almost a fortnight since I wrote to you on 27 June. You haven’t replied. I’m disappointed, of course. I’m not wholly surprised, though. You’ve had a lot on your plate in the aftermath of Undercover Undertaker — and now you’ve got an Early Day Motion in Parliament to contend with. The reputation of Funeralcare is in tatters. What a distressing thing to happen in the middle of the United Nations International Year of the Co-operatives.
Well, it was all bound to come out some time. I hope you see that, now.
I am determined to look on the bright side. I like to believe that you are preoccupied with a full review of the way you operate so that you can relaunch Funeralcare with the core values of co-operation reinstalled, together with a renewed sense of mission both to the bereaved and to those who serve them. It must be reassuring to you to know that you employ some really good, caring people. They deserve better of their management.
So I simply want to repeat my offer: when you have faith-restoring messages that you need to get out to the public, please let us know so that we can do our bit to publicise them. The raison d’être of the Good Funeral Guide is, let me remind you, to direct funeral shoppers to the best people in funeral service. Our core purpose is to sing praises, not to shower blame.
It’s not just the audience of the Good Funeral Guide I want you to reach out to. Before you write to me, please would you write to Sharon McCoy in Runcorn. She has written to you, too, and she, likewise, has not had a reply. She endured a thoroughly unsatisfactory funeral arranged by Co-operative Funeralcare. Of its many unsatisfactory elements, the most distressing was the loss of her mother’s jewellery when it was transferred to another branch. She needs a better and more plausible explanation than the one she has been given, Mr Tinning. Above all, she deserves an apology. When you address this matter, you might look into your complaints procedure, too. When Sharon rang your Client Relations department she was to all intents and purposes stonewalled.
I very much look forward to hearing from you.
With all best wishes,
Charles
In the Bahamas some people are worried about their unregulated funeral industry, just as some British people are worried about their own unregulated funeral industry:
“Have the Bahamian people been hoodwinked, run amok, bamboozled, by persons purporting to be funeral service practitioners who are (actually) charlatans? Charlatans are impostors. Have we been hoodwinked, run amok, bamboozled by impostors in the funeral service industry?”
Grieving relatives put a sacred trust in the professional services they use when a loved one dies. Industry workers have told us that in their view all too often the public’s trust is abused.
One funeral director has been compiling a list of unqualified embalmers.
The list claims there is an uncertified worker who engages in “unethical practices,” who is hired by a number of different establishments. Speaking about the same individual, and the person’s team, another source said: “They are nasty, don’t use proper hygiene, their equipment is not up to standard, their equipment is not properly sanitised and disinfected and they do work for others.”
The list claims there is another uncertified individual, who years ago was implicated in a police investigation concerning a corpse, who is still employed in the industry.
Another funeral director says:
“The ethics in funeral services has nothing to do with what the family sees. While they are not in the embalming room with you, the standard should be straight across the board. What they don’t know, they must be assured that Mr XYZ did it the proper way.”
Very true.
Read the whole article here.
