Let's Talk About Death, Baby

And live a little

After a moving tribute in a recent post by a fellow Stacker (and dare I say, friend?) Monica Hughs, I felt an urge to put down some musings about the ever so uncouth subject of death. The taboo this subject carries around is so profound that one doesn’t have to be a part of polite society to avoid its mention, un-polite society doesn’t care for it either. It’s considered a ubiquitous vulnerability. So no one wants to talk about it for real. But why? We all die, ffs.

Most of our perception of death comes from when we are children and we faced our first existential childhood crisis as a pet dies, or a beloved grandparent. Maybe we saw it on TV or, as unfortune might have it, we experienced the death of a parent or a sibling at a young age.

My first memory of it was when I was a four, and a neighbor who had a hard attack was laid out in his flower ladened casket in his parlor, the glue holding the eyelids together crusting at the corners, hands interwoven in eternal prayer. Back then, bodies were displayed in the parlors, even here, in the United States, until furniture makers wanted a fresh new angle to sell furniture and renamed the parlor space “the living room”; talk about a slap in the face of dead people. Anyway, I was alone in the room with that dead neighbor for what felt like a very long time. It’s where the food was. I stared at his stoic face. He looked so very peaceful. And he had been such a curmudgeon in real life. At four, death didn’t seem quite so scary at all. That day, I got in trouble for eating too many meringues.

Years later, I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and find my mother crying and when I would ask her why, she would tell me it’s because she misses my grandma who had died when I was two and whose memory I haven’t been able to hold on to, just stories about her. And the thought of missing my own mother so intensely would send my young mind into emotional spirals in which I begged her to swear to me that she will never die. And just to calm me, she would. We didn’t know how to talk about death.

When my twins were five, they were taking a bath, legs over the tub, and through the crack of the door, I overheard them talking about our dog Bella. They had just started playing Minecraft or some such and their imaginations explained our dead pet away as changing its avatar and coming back for another round of the game in a different costume. Death not being the final act has been a healthier philosophy with my family, although the great mystery remains and I often find myself asking folks whose relationship has graduated form surface level acquaintance to friendship, ‘what do you think happens when you die?’, finding every answer fascinating. The last wedding I went to, the minister was also an embalmer and we ended up spending half the reception in the corner of the backyard, talking about it. I’m really great at parties.

Now before you think this is another gloom and doom post, I’d like to differ and remind everyone that death is the greatest life teacher; that there are worse things than death, like living unwell; that acknowledging death on the daily is holding life in reverence. And since death has been removed so far away from common dialogue, I’d like to reclaim normalizing conversations about it. I have one friend who does this on the regular. She isn’t afraid to bring it out and her courage has empowered me to do the same as of late. Let’s talk about death, shall we?

I don’t want to whisper about death. I don’t want to tip toe around d-e-a-t-h. I just want to talk about it, casually like. I want to hear your beliefs and your fears! Get personal, it’s ok. I want to know about your first childhood memories and about your near death experiences. Here’s mine:

When I visited my home country for the first time after living in the United States for 15 years, I got really sick. At first I thought it was bad sea food, but after a week of not holding any food down from either ends, we suspected the giant mosquitoes that had infiltrated my home town after some unprecedented floods. When we called the hospital, we were told that it was full of people with my symptoms and that the best my mom could do was give me some pain relief and pray. One night, I woke up to go to the bathroom, (it had become my most frequently occupied space) and I lost consciousness, plonked on the seat, panties around my ankles. I imagined Elvis had similar thoughts before promptly taking his last breath: I can’t believe I’m gonna die here. And then, my state of being was different. I could no longer hear, see, speak, or feel, but I was everything all at once; I was the vibrations of sound and wavelengths of light and the energy of feeling. And I wanted to tell my mother I was alright as her overwhelming sense of worry and fear filled the room. Later, she told me she saw me slumped over, eyes rolled back, skin cold and clammy. Yes, maybe my brain played tricks on me: firing off neurons and creating illusions. I didn’t see a white tunnel or loved ones gone before. But the experience felt uniquely and deathly (haha, literally) real. Years later, psilocybin allowed me to have the feeling again, this time, without the dying part.

I don’t know if everyone is as obsessed with their own mortality as I am. I always wonder if I’ve done enough or am doing enough that if I was to die this moment, it would have been a good run. I suppose it’s likely the stuff you ponder when you hit your mid life point. But we still avoid talking about it. For a bit, I flirted with the idea of hosting a death cafe or even becoming a death doula. And perhaps, one day, once I’m no longer in need of service to my young children, I will get the chance to do that. But in the meantime, I want to learn how to talk about death. Because we are about to have a lot more of it.

It’s already been sneaking into our periphery — no not covid, although there have been plenty of casualties there — but these unusual, often sudden and unexplained occurrences: athletes, news anchors, and public personas whose deaths were televised due to careers in live recorded presentations; legacy actors who are overflowing the Oscar’s In Memoriam entries; funeral procession which are closing down traffic more frequently; tribute posts on FB that are becoming a daily thing… These occurrences seem to be both closing in and becoming more numerous and once they enter the collective consciousness, we won’t be able to talk about much else.

We are a Mandelbrot Fractal @WeRMandelbrot

The rot emanating from the giant elephant's corpse is gonna make sure we face reality.

And these aren’t just unhealthy older adults whose life’s winter is upon them, but young healthy people are experiencing these tragedies. My children, whose time well (or not so well) spent invested in YouTubers showed me the heartbreaking story of Technoblade whose aggressive unexpected cancer took his life in a very short span. Like many other believers before him, he encouraged his fans to fulfill their civic duty in saving humanity.

And though the covid pabulum has left the podium, cancers are showing up at stage IV, so pull up a chair. And though restrictions are easing, all cause mortality is a black swan in many Western countries, so dust off the log by the campfire. And though we don’t want to talk about it, because self-preservation denial, we are still plenty SADS, so talk we must. No one can afford insouciance because the illusion that this is normal requires our participation and it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the cause of all these episodes rhymes with ‘vaccines’. We just need to talk about death, friends. The smoke has evaporated and the mirrors have shattered and the receipts have stacked up. I’m sorry if it makes you feel uncomfortable, but I really think that it’s some evil genius shit to keep this subject extra taboo especially now, post vaccine roll out, to “sow division and stir existential emotions’: 

They're free to keep on killing us, as long as we keep thinking that they couldn't be that evil

Now, I know that life has a 100% fatality rate and no one gets out of it alive, but I’d like to see everyone doing the best they can with the deck of cards they were dealt and if we happen to draw a bad card here and there, well the game can still have value so let’s keep playing, eh? And here’t the thing, if we don’t snap out of it and recognize the lies that have led us here, then a.) we can’t move forward with finding ways to heal physically, mentally, or spiritually and b.) we'll just fall for the next psy-op du jour and sooner or later even the tin-foil hatters will stop screaming into the abyss. The sociopaths and the ‘malignorant’ and the ‘psycophants’ (h/t Mrhounddog) will find other tactics to satiate their Malthusian ways; as Dr. John points out, they are humanity’s only natural predators.

But we are talking about it now.

Does It Feel Like EVERYTHING is Coming to a Head?

Here’s the good news. The very good news. Despite all the indoctrination in our schools, the corruption and capture of institutions, despite the non-stop programming and attacks on our air, food and water, despite the onslaught of pharma cooperating with governments to keep us medicated and sick, despite the false flags and endless manufactured crises, despite all of this, humans are rising. Maybe not as many as we’d like, but still… you can see it. You can feel it.

Kathleen Devanney

Yes, people are rising. And no amount of topic avoidance is going to stop the avalanche so we might as well talk about death. And causes of death. And causers of death.

Just remember, the psychopaths are also dying. The sickness in our society has paid its toll. They say, before death we only see annoyances; after death, only virtues. And so maybe in the wake of grief, after our society has transitioned, we will remember the good stuff more fondly and the bad stuff less vividly. For now, I urge you to (re)watch this 4 min video which anachronistically not only serves as a most apropos depiction of our current predicament, but also as a reminder of the ability of man to convey his nostalgia for the future through creative expression and technological invention. A silent movie star shouting the most paramount message. Just look what we can do. 5/5 worth living for.

So, let’s talk?