Tag: death
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Memento mori in medicine
Stephanie JiangToronto, Ontario, Canada It is easy to believe that humankind’s greatest fear is death. From our humble beginnings to now modern-day society, we have learned that Death will always chase us. Few professions explore our mortality so candidly; in most Western occupations, death is seldom mentioned. Dying is spoken of in hushed tones, and…
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Reclamation
Natalie PerlovPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Like many people, my first experience with death was losing a grandparent. I remember my parents organizing my late grandfather’s affairs, noting our religious practice of having as few people as possible touch the body before the burial. Our culture emphasizes community and togetherness in life, yet my grandfather died…
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Keeping corpses company
Nater AkpenMakurdi, Benue State, Nigeria Inspired by an error where he had misjudged the time since death—not by hours or days—by 112 years,1 William Bass set up the Anthropological Research Facility in Tennessee. His request to his dean was simple: Give me some land to put dead bodies on. His research facility, colloquially called the…
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Saying goodbye
Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece Her head is bald, her face pale. Only a couple of weeks have passed since her latest cycle of chemotherapy, which imposed its ravages but offered no benefit. The disease is marching relentlessly ahead, the survival horizon drawing closer each day. She is alive only with the help of strong medications that…
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O Child! My Child!
Alice RanjanRedmond, Washington, USA O Child! My Child!Enter did you, into this world,incarnadine and warm.But when I held you in my arms,you did not shriek or love or scorn.Nay, you took the pathfrom mother’s bloodto River Styxin evanescent breath.How I wish you could have stayed with meto see the world beyond. You will not see…
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Farewell, dear pictures that I have loved so well
For nearly two decades Cardinal Jules Mazarin was the de facto ruler of France and the most powerful person in Europe. Born in Italy in 1602, he worked as a Papal diplomat but offered his services to Cardinal Richelieu and moved to Paris in 1640. When Richelieu died in 1642, he acted as the head…
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Please don’t die in the hospital
Alexandra DeFeliceFalls Church, Virginia, United States I don’t like the way people die in the hospital. I don’t like the color schemes, the paleness that seeps into every empty wall, every window shade, every floor tile; every cafeteria counter, every elevator sign, every parking lot stripe—the paleness, the sterile acceptance, that appears, eventually, in every…
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The pyramids of Petach Tikvah
Simon WeinPetach Tikvah Dead bodies may be burned, buried, left for carrion animals,1 dropped into the sea, mummified, made into fertilizer or diamonds,2 or sent to universities to be dissected. However, there are several reasons why in many cultures the dead are buried in cemeteries and mausoleums: Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address used the dedication of…
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The grieving one: on the death of a spouse
Paul Rousseau Charleston, South Carolina, United States “A real experience of death isolates one absolutely. The bereaved cannot communicate with the unbereaved.” – Iris Murdoch, An Accidental Man, 1971 ‘Alone’ holds the word ‘one.’ Photo by Javier Ocampo Zuluaga on Pixabay. After the death of a spouse, we are al(one). ____ One pillow…