Talking about DEATH – is it morbid?

We live in a society that sees talking about death, thinking about death, writing and reading about death as morbid.

What is morbid, what is indeed unhealthy, is a society that separates and dissociates death from life as if the two can ever be separated – two sides of the same coin. We claim to embrace Life…..while attempting to pretend its Siamese twin, Death, doesn’t exist, all the time living as if we still have one foot in the womb (as Stephen Levine put so eloquently in one of his books – which one, I can’t remember).

What is morbid and unhealthy is that we try to sit death quietly in the corner, still pretending it can’t see us and we can’t see it. We try to keep it away from children, and lie to them about it, to ‘protect’ them – all the while creating unnecessary fear and perpetuating the vicious cycle of denial around the only thing in life that is an absolute inevitability.  And then, when it happens, every time it happens, we are shocked.  As if, having avoided reality so very well for so very long, we had no idea it would ever come.

I recently came across the guy who runs deathcafe.com  This is apparently a Swiss concept – a cafe where people get together and talk about – you guessed it – death. Does that sound morbid to you? Does that make you uncomfortable? Is that a place you would go? And if not, why not?

One thing I have learnt for sure is that the study of death is the study of life. Time around death is time around, and a new appreciation for, life.  It is extremely difficult to live each day like it really matters without embracing the fact that it could end any day. Every day is not precious to you when you are fantasising that you have been guaranteed a life that will never end…or at least won’t end till you’re 95.  Hold on, you weren’t  guaranteed that? No, neither was I. Nor was anyone else.