Journal 12—A Mortician and Death (NPR)
Caitlin Doughty is a mortician from California who went to embalming school and has a career in cremation of corpses. She has very agreeable stances on death, the processes of preparing a body for their last position on Earth, etc. I found this NPR podcast very enlightening, however sobering.
Doughty describes death as a natural occurrence that should be viewed as beautiful. The NPR podcast reviewer Terry Gross contrasts the beautiful, natural, and spiritual view of death to the psychological terror that Islamic group ISIS brings upon the world with their videos of people being beheaded, etc. This is why, I believe, alongside other cultural stigmas, death is viewed with an uncomfortable light.
Doughty talks about the many ways that corpses can be prepared for their disposition. Cremation isn’t the only way. There are many other ways, such as alkaline hydrolysis (which is where a body is dissolved in hot water and lye), as well as natural ways such as putting a body in a shroud and letting them naturally decompose into the earth. The latter way is a way that my family and I have been practicing for many generations. I believe that death is purely natural, somewhat spiritual, and completely normal. I do not agree with cemeteries of today as they take up massive amounts of land that typically cannot be changed into more productive pieces of real estate. One should not memorialize a death for such a long-extended period. There are many ways to memorialize people, and cremation is definitely a good way for space-saving, if that’s the family’s desire.
Embalmment is another method of preserving a body for a wake, either at a funeral or at home. Doughty talks about how she has almost always been somewhat against the idea of embalmment (for the way it is used today) due to the environmental cost, and the fact that it takes away the natural beauty of death.
Our society is squeamish of death. I believe this has much to do with culture surrounding spirits, demons, pop-culture like “The Grim Reaper,” and Medieval Times where the Black Plague draws deathly connotations. Death is also extremely cultural in the sense that all cultures have different methods of taking care of the dead, much beyond the scope of what we see here in the United States of any other western civilizations. And I’m here to exclaim that each and every one of those ways is okay. Death is a very personal thing. The family has much to do with what happens to one’s corpse and should remain that way. The only thing that needs to change is how people view death. Death is, and forever will be, our endpoint as humans (or any organism, that is). It’s the way life goes, and all one should do for such is to simply prepare.
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