All Essays

April missive about why we bury the dead.

Welcome to Death Education Central!

What happens to us physically and mentally when death becomes real

Art does not arrive after loss as a gentle comfort. It appears when the opposition becomes unbearable. When presence turns into absence. When life collides with death. When love no longer has a living recipient.

Death is not frightening simply because it happens. It is frightening because we know it will happen to us.

I was reviewing my copy of Metcalf and Huntington's Celebrations of Death in preparation for the social media post for Chapter 3 "Symbolic Associations of Death", and I was captivated once again by the discussion on fermentation and the parallels with decomposition in funeral rituals in some parts of Southeast Asia. This is a particular kind of association that only develops when people live close to decay. Not the kind of decay imagined in horror films or managed out of sig