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Jun. 19th, 2003
A post-modern death
Jun. 19th, 2003 03:30 pmI just got off the phone with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lemur_catta and learned that her mother only has a day or so left. It seems very sudden but I guess the lemur had pretty much told me what to expect.
Betty's dying has been a thought provoking experience (albeit a vicarious one) for me. I am 45 years old and I have never seen a dead person, let alone seen someone die. The modern paradigm seems(ed?) to be that one dies in a sterile room hooked up to machine that goes ping and is then boxed up as rapidly and aseptically as possible. The underlying assumption is that death is something to be avoided, hidden, shunned even.
The idea of accepting death and dying in a low-tech way surrounded by family and friends seems both very old-fashioned and eminently sane, even attractive.
lemur_catta and learned that her mother only has a day or so left. It seems very sudden but I guess the lemur had pretty much told me what to expect.Betty's dying has been a thought provoking experience (albeit a vicarious one) for me. I am 45 years old and I have never seen a dead person, let alone seen someone die. The modern paradigm seems(ed?) to be that one dies in a sterile room hooked up to machine that goes ping and is then boxed up as rapidly and aseptically as possible. The underlying assumption is that death is something to be avoided, hidden, shunned even.
The idea of accepting death and dying in a low-tech way surrounded by family and friends seems both very old-fashioned and eminently sane, even attractive.
