Death

is the topic of yesterday's Fresh Air on NPR.

Caitlin Doughty is the author and mortician interviewed and the information she shares is very interesting, causing one to think about death.

As I age and getter closer and closer to death I do think about it more. I have my thoughts and wishes that I hope are granted, some can be performed by my family, others take a power much larger than us all.

I wish to be cremated. (Are you listening family?) Doughty talks about crematories and wishes that families could be in attendance to say good bye as the body is pushed inside the industrial vault. Hmm, I don't know if I could do that, watch the person go and come out ashes. But she strongly feels it would be a wonderful way to say goodbye.

Then there is also a new method coming out in CA where the body is placed in water with an acid. An alternative to cremation for those who find the thought of burning the body offensive. I think it's going to take my mind a little while to wrap around this process and I don't know why. They are both disintegration of the body, does the method really matter?

My other wish is to die when I'm healthy and that may sound like an oxymoron, but I guess I mean I just want to die in the night. Boom. Gone. I don't want to suffer and have my family watch my slow burn to the end. I just don't want to be a burden. And we all know I have no choice in that matter.

Doughty talked about not embalming bodies. She thinks the family should put the body on dry ice (oh boy, can you imagine going to buy dry ice and telling the vendor why?) and let the body stay in your presence. She feels the family should wash the body, dress the body, etc because this is a way to say goodbye and understand death better as you watch the life leave the person. If you have ever seen a body shortly after death I do understand what she is saying. You do see the life float away and just the body, the corpse, remains. Death  does become a bit more real.

She didn't really address funerals, but I bet it's in her book. I think funerals should be more a life celebration, sort of a big party. Maybe friends and family could get up and speak, like at a wedding, and there would be food and wine and mingling. Or I can totally understand just a quiet family goodbye without any fanfare.

I do know it is important to talk with your family about your wishes, because when the time comes YOU are not dealing with it, they are. When they know what you want, then the implementation is so much smoother.

This author's wish is for Americans to bring back a realistic discussion of death. It is true we are all facing death, it's just a matter of time and yet it is something none of us wish to discuss or even acknowledge when someone dies.

Listen to the interview. It is really informative. She also has a website, The Order of the Good Death.