Death doula Alua Arthur says life is better if you 'get real' about the end
https://www.npr.org/2024/04/17/1245264129/death-doula-alua-arthur-briefly-perfectly-human
I think one of the great failures of Western Society is the apparent taboo about talking or thinking of death. We pretend that the next pill or potion will help us live forever, fueling our consumer society.
I feel that death is a passage as birth is a passage, and that we should acknowledge and plan for it. Life and death are intimately intertwined and one cannot exist without the other.
@gemswinc We have a death doula who lives in our household. They are currently working in hospice in a more or less regular corporate version of the job.
The things families just don't deal with, or even know how to deal with, and the often terrible and lonely ways people die under our current way of doing things are heartbreaking.
Death is both frightening and inevitable. It is one of the more difficult changes we face. We need better, more human ways of making that passage in love and peace.
@AskTheDevil @gemswinc I cannot recommend enough the book Being Mortal by Atul Guwande.
@AI78 @gemswinc I am always looking for more understanding of what it is to be mortal.
I can't blame y'all for not always being good at being mortal. It is extremely confusing and difficult and complicated.
I've been doing it for a very long time, and I am the first to admit that it is not easy. It's hard to be a person!
@AI78 I have read it, it's on the shelf 🙂@AskTheDevil