Knowing you knowing best
Yesterday I drove to Norfolk to meet Anne Beckett-Allen and her husband Simon. It was well worth every mile of the journey. They greeted me with warmth and kindness. They took me somewhere nice for lunch. And we chatted – oh, about death and funerals, mostly. What else? Anne and Simon have been notably successful. […]
Who we are is what we mean to others
Here are some extracts from a cheering story in the Newburyport News, Massachusetts which has set me thinking about the nature of identity and community. My father, Arthur Allen, died at the age of 63 on Aug. 2. My dad was the embodiment of compassion, duty, style and bravery. He was the guy fighting for […]
The difference between you and it
I think we’ve all done some good hard thinking, over the last few months, about the value and role of the dead body at a funeral. The discussion of this, and other matters, has elicited some extremely interesting ideas and some statements which, to my eyes, look likely to become axioms. I’m thinking of Gloria […]
The D-Word
There’s a new book out about dying and death. It’s called, appropriately, The D-Word. Now, there’s a heap of books out there about long-term care of the very ill; there’s another heap about bereavement. We don’t urgently need more of them. But there’s hardly anything out there about grim D. We do urgently need […]
Getting over it
For the Victorians, sex was the great taboo. Nowadays, it’s death. Every time I hear someone begin to say that I jam my fingers in my ears. I may even moan softly. Gibber a bit, even. I’m, I can’t tell you, I’m just so sick of it. Talk about cliché, god, it makes even the […]
Ivan
To whom does grief belong? For whom should we grieve? How should we behave when we grieve and what should grief be allowed to spill over into? When motorists cut up a cortege, sound their horns and curse it for getting in the way we observe the collapse of community values and understand that death […]
