TW: Mentions of suicide and dying.
I recently came across this quote:
“Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!” ― Henry Scott Holland, Death is Nothing at All
The quote tells us about a good death, the kind where one is surrounded by friends and family, everything has been said and done, the concept of death fully grasped, even welcomed. So this begs the question:
Can dying be lighthearted and cheery?
Are all deaths good? Can we have good deaths? What does it mean to die a good death?
Will we go the way we want? Can I accept that I am dying?
How do we leave behind the least amount of pain for people who survive after me? How can I prepare for a good death?
To be fair, this is no dinner table topic. Death can be difficult to confront especially when its current state is so sanitised and removed from society. Caitlin Doughty’s podcast Death in the Afternoon (“Get Your Sh*t Together” episode) and her book “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory” really struck a chord in me. It was pertinent to share this discovery, people had to know! However, I really struggled trying to tie the whole discovery and my own excitement around this topic together. Never in a million years did I think that my brother’s suicide would be used to create a space to talk about death and its aftermath.
Hours after finding out my brother had taken his life, my grandmother said, “Coffins are for dead people, not old people”. The worst thing to hear at the lowest point in my life.
I’m not taking questions about the whats and the whys. I don’t really know how to explain it anymore. I feel that explaining what happened is trying to rationalise and intellectualise something that cannot be rationalised and intellectualised. The math is not mathing! There will not be any comfort in trying to find out why. I also don’t have much to prove that he existed once in my life. It still hurts and honestly, time does not heal, it just teaches you how to live with it. I do not forgive him and I do not hate him, it’s just the way it is. *Writer’s note: While I understand that this can be a good segue into mental health (possible to explore in future newsletters), I doubt I can interview my brother’s urn and get a good answer. Maybe a seance?*
Not a lot has been said about all the things that need to be done after finding out about the death initially. At that point in time, there was very little space in my mind to process the list of things that need to be done. Of course, no one can prepare you for a sudden death, but trying to move on and then being set back because of one unsettled document is truly a dick move from the universe. Honestly, being unprepared about realities of dying and how society (and the world at large) moves on, there was very little space to grief properly. Cracking a phone password, calling government agencies, sending death certificates to organisations…there was little space to sit with my feelings. We don’t talk about what comes after dying, the logisitics of objects once owned.
The thinking that there is nothing we can do in the face of death IS SO FUCKING STUPID. It’s gone on for too long! We can decide how our lives will end. We can decide how we want to be taken care of. We can decide the legacy we want to leave behind. No legacy is too small and no object is too insignificant. I feel we often think that we have nothing much to leave behind, that is not true. We can leave behind what we want because we have autonomy, even in death.
The point of all this is to make a difficult thing less difficult. In our decision and recognition of autonomy, this will be our final act of love for the people who care about us. I keep telling everyone around me about this because I think its important to get ahead of this now! Planting the seed in everyone’s minds!
So I’m taking steps to start my “When I Die” file, I’m starting with the simple things that are already at my fingertips like passwords, bank accounts, insurance policites. The reality is that the aftermath of someone’s death is often forgotten (or hidden). Definitely, do not be intimidated—most of them will be easy to collect. Knowing that I’m working on this and Also, it brings me a lot of comfort that the end is well taken care of, the collective suffering will be reduced.
Recommended readings to help populate your “When I Die” file:
A Beginner's Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death (tl;dr article here)
Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (a really good book to read when grappling with grief, this book helped me feel less alone. I felt that my grief was fully realised. The language was very precise, definitely felt seen. The book covers the familial and cultural dimensions of grief and also about the loneliness and anger that are unavoidable in it.)
This list is not exhaustive, (I’m still reading the first 2 books) but I think in reading these books, it’s a good start getting cozy with this idea is a good start. Getting some done is better than none.
While we are young and unconvinced that Death will take us out to dinner soon, it can do us some good to get ahead of these things so we can go on living life uninterrupted (and even if Death rudely interrupts, it’s okay!).