How can we grieve our loved ones without our traditions?

By Niamh Delmar

In Ireland, wakes, removals and funerals have been an integral part of our culture. Giving the deceased a ‘good send off ‘ has been a final tribute to those who have passed. Offering our condolences, food and practical help is an inherent part of our culture.

In the past, churches have heaved with mourners and locals gathering to pay their respects. Celebrations of life, humanist services and scattering of ashes have facilitated a communal mourning. Over the years, soup and sandwiches in the pub after, morphed into meals in a hotel.

The rituals of a burial or cremation are an important part of our humanity and the grieving process. As well as handshakes, hugs and pats on the back, mourners meet people who knew the deceased at different times in their lives. Life stories are elaborated on.

The rituals of a burial or cremation are an important part of the grieving process.

The Irish wake has been passed on through generations. It facilitates the dead and the alive to come together. Traditionally a room in the person’s house is prepared, beside a window to let the spirit leave to its eternal journey. Candles are lit at the foot of the person and the corpse is dressed in their best clothes with rosary beads in their hands.

Prayers, tears, laughter, song and drinking all feature in the presence of close family or the whole neighbourhood and friends. Historically, the deceased was kept in the room for three nights with someone always attending it. There was a lead keener who would cry over the body then others would join in and wail. A wake is a mix of sorrow and celebration, but sadly has been curtailed by this pandemic.

COVID-19 has hijacked our customs around death. Rituals, such as kissing the deceased, open caskets, condolence books and even transport to the funeral have all been impacted. Churches that once heaved have now just a few pews filled with masked mourners while everyone else is watching or crying at a screen, lining a road or standing outside. The solace of connection has been taken.

Mary Cunniffe, branch manager with Massey Brothers funeral directors talked with me about the adapting they have experienced over the past year. Supporting employees at this ‘other’ frontline has been a focus as they have been exposed to suffering, while also trying to keep themselves safe from infection. Some have vulnerable people at home living with them.

Mary commented that grief has been compounded by not having had a chance to have said their goodbyes or words that were left unspoken. People have not been able to give the large repose to honour their dead. Another fall-out from restrictions is that people are unable to visit the bereaved, help hold their grief, or help with practicalities.

All of this is part of the grieving process and eases the suffering. Crying on a shoulder, sharing a cup of tea or a drink, recounting stories about the deceased carries those mourning. Landmarks such as death anniversaries, the deceased birthdays and significant dates have passed unmarked. Suffering and loss has traumatised our nation.

Dying during the pandemic with social distancing and other measures goes against our core nature. Grief has been intensified among those who are left to handle the idea of their loved ones dying alone. Holding the hand of a dying person is comforting to both.

It exacerbates grief when those close to the person can’t attend to their needs, get to know the doctors and nurses or advocate for them the same way. The role of human contact in dying and grieving is powerful. Health care workers have borne the additional brunt of this pandemic by witnessing patients dying without the usual presence of loved ones.

End of life
It is time for dying, funerals and grieving to be looked at in different ways and for us to be prepared for the aftershocks of COVID and non-COVID related deaths during this pandemic and its restrictions. Conversations can be initiated to ensure choices are made and wishes observed.

More palliative care at home is of enormous benefit to overstretched hospitals and provides comfort to the dying and their loved ones. Sharon Foley CEO of the Irish Hospice foundation has said that surveys reveal 75% of people would like to die at home but only 25% do.

More personnel, such as Chaplains and end of life carers, are needed in Hospitals and play a significant role at the end of life and also play a supportive role to the medical team.

Hospices provide holistic care and dignity to the patient, and look after the needs of loved ones. More of this type of intervention is needed. Ten million euro was awarded to the voluntary hospice sector recently which helps bolster the loss of fundraising monies.

Studies have shown that simple acts such as sitting, rather than standing, at a patient’s bedside can have a positive impact. Open communication between healthcare workers and families is essential. Gathering information about the patient’s life story, likes and interests can facilitate connection with those who are treating and caring for them.

End of life can be personalised with photos of the person nearby, their favourite music being played and the use of technology for loved ones to be in regular contact. The medical team can have their photos and names on their uniforms to ease the distress of being treated by people in full PPE gear. Hospice professionals assert that hearing is the last thing to go so talking, music and other aural activities can be soothing interventions.

Grieving
While public health is a priority, limited visitation policies and funeral restrictions need be constantly reviewed to provide dignity to those who are nearing the end of life and solace to those grieving. Restrictions compound the process of grieving, increasing the risk of various psychiatric conditions, such as PTSD, depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation.

It also increases the risk of complicated grief or prolonged grief disorder, as not being able to say goodbye to a loved one is a risk factor. It helps if the funeral can be personalised with input from those who can’t attend and a virtual platform can be arranged where people can leave messages, memories, poetry, song and photos in honour of the deceased.

Outlets for children to express emotions can be encouraged. Regular scheduled virtual meet-ups to remember the person’s birthday, anniversary and other landmarks maintains connection. It is never too late to have a memorial, and some people I have spoken with are planning these at a later, safer stage to celebrate the person’s life.

Professionals involved with the bereaved can benefit from training in grief counselling and assessing complicated grief. We all need to be mindful of how we use the word ‘loss’. It has been thrown out there carelessly. While there have been so many losses experienced throughout this pandemic, the loss of a holiday is not at the same level as not being able to be at their loved ones bedside at the end.

Health care workers and the frontline
Counselling is also essential for those who have been at the frontline and exposed to trauma. Compassion fatigue is intensified, without the support of families being present, while a patient is ill or dying. Comforting patients with the barrier of PPE, having difficult conversations and substituting loved ones is a huge emotional responsibility. And moral injury is a systemic problem when frontline workers become frustrated as they are unable to provide care, at the level they were trained, due to constraints.

Significant distress arises when a person has to go against their value system. Psychological PPE is fundamental to protecting the mental health of the frontline. It involves assessment, identification, intervention and monitoring of staff. Debriefings, peer support, support groups, self-care practices have all been found to be beneficial.

Professor Neil Greenberg, Consultant Occupational Psychologist, trauma specialist and Forensic Psychiatrist at King’s College London has called for better identification of vulnerable workers and access to evidence- based treatment. Many others are involved in end of life care such as the funeral sector, clergy, carers and social workers.

There is, and will be collateral damage, but the systems in place within each setting can alleviate adverse symptomatology.

Communities, individuals, society, organisations and policies can interconnect to provide end of life dignity, ways to facilitate after life rituals and identify and support the bereaved. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a n-anamacha.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

March 11, 2021March 10, 2021

“He Thought The Idea Was Hilarious”

— Director Kirsten Johnson On “Killing” Her Father Repeatedly In ‘Dick Johnson Is Dead’

Kirsten Johnson directs a scene with her dad for the new documentary, “Dick Johnson Is Dead.”

By Matthew Carey

The Oscar documentary shortlist abounds with memorable love stories—between a woman and her incarcerated husband in Time, between a man and a mollusk in My Octopus Teacher, and in Dick Johnson Is Dead, between a daughter and her aging father.

Of those three films, Dick Johnson Is Dead qualifies as the most unusual stylistically. Director Kirsten Johnson, faced with her beloved father’s cognitive decline, conceived various outlandish scenarios in which her dad might die, and then filmed them.

“The premise of the movie is that we were going to kill my father over and over again with the help of stunt people until he really died for real. Why? Because we wanted to keep bringing him back to life,” Johnson tells Deadline. “I think we desperately needed to laugh because dementia will rip your heart out and you could just cry for decades if you didn’t find a way to laugh at it.”

In one scene, an air conditioner falls from high above on top over her father, crushing him. In another he takes an awful tumble down a flight of stairs, ending up in a twisted heap. Dick Johnson, a man with a genial disposition, takes part in this filmic experiment with endearing enthusiasm.

“I think cinema is play. And my father is ‘game,’ he’s game to participate in this,” Johnson comments. “He thought the idea was hilarious and it was like, ‘Okay, we’re doing this.’”

Before encroaching dementia prompted his retirement, Dick Johnson worked for decades as a psychiatrist. Perhaps appropriately, the subconscious mind informed the documentary from the start.

“I had this crazy dream where there was this casket and a man sat up—it wasn’t my dad—he said, ‘I’m Dick Johnson and I’m not dead yet,’” the director recalls. “I probably did unconsciously understand that the dementia had begun. I wasn’t consciously aware of it at that moment, but I think in the way that dreams and brains try to tell you things, now when I think about it, it was an unrecognizable man who was my father, which is sort of what the dementia would do. I think in some ways that dream was like, ‘Wake up! Your dad is changing.’”

Johnson had previously gone through the agonizing experience of losing her mother to Alzheimer’s.

“Honestly, I was like so mad to have had my mom already have it. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ I was sort of enraged at the idea of having to face it again,” she confesses. “It just felt like, ‘Let me come up with another plan, another idea, another way,’ this Holy Grail of, ‘Could this be a funny movie? Please?’ We had some fun doing it and we had some tears doing it.”

The Netflix film, a strong contender for an Oscar nomination, premiered last January at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won a special jury award for Innovation in Nonfiction Storytelling. It’s gone on to win multiple honors, including Best Documentary at the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards, as well as best writing for Johnson and Nels Bangerter and best editing for Bangerter at the IDA Documentary Awards. Dick Johnson Is Dead was named one of the top five documentaries of the year by the National Board of Review and has earned a Producers Guild Award nomination.

On paper, the concept of the film might strike some as morbid. But audiences have responded emotionally to the film’s whimsical and yet somehow frank way of confronting the prospect of a loved one’s demise.

“From my point of view, facing pain—when you can do it with people you love and with the capacity to attempt to build something new out of it, whether it’s a new relationship or whether it is transformed into some form of art—I think that that is the only hope we have,” Johnson observes. “That, in some ways, is how we have survived as people—we sort of offer back out to each other these forms or witness.”

Dick Johnson Is Dead resonates forcefully in a time when Covid-19 has claimed so many lives.

“The pandemic in some ways has opened every human up to the experience of anticipatory grief. We don’t know how much we’re going to lose and we’re afraid of how much we’re going to lose,” Johnson says. “If you love a person with a degenerative disease [like dementia] you have a great deal of experience with anticipatory grief. You’re grieving about what you’ve lost already, what you might lose, what you’re not sure when you’re going to lose.”

That’s particularly difficult to contemplate in Johnson’s case, having a father who’s meant everything to her.

“He has treasured me for the person that I am and allowed me to be sort of as big as I wanted to be…He saw me. I think so many of us struggle with not being seen or not being allowed,” Johnson tells Deadline. “That’s who he is and who he was. Even in the advanced dementia now he’ll call me and say, ‘I just want to make sure you know I love you.’”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

March 3, 2021March 2, 2021

Professor emeritus has last words on death and dying

Professor emeritus Ronald Bayne was one of Canada’s first geriatricians and a lifelong advocate for better care for older adults. Dr. Bayne, shown here receiving his honorary doctorate at McMaster in 2006, died on Friday after deciding to take advantage of the opportunity for medical assistance in dying.

Dr. Ronald Bayne was one of Canada’s first geriatricians and spent much of his long career as a passionate advocate for better care for the elderly, working to solve the problems in long-term care homes.

At 98, and racked with chronic pain, he turned his advocacy to another cause critical to the elderly: planning the end of life.

Bayne, who was a professor emeritus of McMaster University, died on Friday after deciding to take advantage of the opportunity for medical assistance in dying.

Before dying, he shared his story with the media and produced a compelling video urging seniors and their families to take control of the end of their lives.

The 12-minute video is a powerful demonstration of Bayne’s passion for the cause to the very end, part reflection on death and dying, part rallying cry for better health care and autonomy for the elderly.

“I’m 98 so I am near the end of my life. Fortunately, my mind is still clear though my body is exhausted,” he says in the video.

“I want the vast majority of the population, and seniors in particular, to realize that they have far more control at the end than they realize they do. Every Canadian has the right to control their own bodies. There’s no question about it. You are legally entitled, and you must insist that your voice is heard.”

In the video, Bayne is eloquent and passionate, referring to Dr. William Osler and Shakespeare and his long experience in health care.

“I had a long career as a physician and over these many years I’ve been struck by the fact that increasingly people are fearing death and dying. I think it’s become almost universal,” he says. “People themselves have become fearful about what may happen at the end of their lives, and if they’re going to be suffering great pain, if they’ll get relief.

“I want people to get over this fear of the unknown and make it known. Discuss it openly, realizing that death is inevitable.”

He says everyone has the right to end their life if it has become unbearable. “Some people say that’s promoting death. Of course it’s not promoting death. Death is inevitable, you don’t need to promote it. No, this is to reduce suffering and pain. And if you as a person are not likely to pass on soon, you should be able to control your own end of life.”

Trained at McGill University, Bayne was a professor of medicine at McMaster’s Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine from 1970 until he retired as a professor emeritus in 1989.

He received an honorary degree from McMaster in 2006 for his advocacy and work raising awareness of the need for better care of the elderly and chronically ill people, and his initiation of programs that work to prevent the warehousing of often marginalized populations.

It is clear from the video that his passion for this work continued through the very end of his life.

“We must have our voices heard. That’s what I’m urging people to do in later life,” he says in the video. “Take that responsibility. Let us ensure that the health-care system for long-term care is properly organized and managed and supervised.

“We know, from recent experience with COVID, that these long-term institutions were very poorly managed, and in a way, the general public is justified in their fear of what will happen to seniors in those places,” Bayne says, suggesting the seniors need to realize they have more control than they think they do.

“We as seniors should be working with our families to discuss the end and how we wish it to occur and building up their [family’s] feeling of confidence that it will be peaceful for us and bearable for them. So instead of focusing on the end, build up great memories, happy memories that the family will treasure afterwards.”

Bayne had a close relationship with the university over the years, and 13 of his family members have McMaster degrees, including the honorary degree awarded his son-in-law, Michael Hayes, in 2017.

Bayne and his wife Barbara have made several donations to the university, establishing the Ronald Bayne Gerontology Award for a graduate student conducting aging research; and the Barbara and Ronald Bayne Award to provide support for senior students in the Department of Health, Aging and Society who are engaged in practical learning experience as part of their undergraduate studies.

“Dr. Bayne has been a wonderful teacher for all of us from his days at McMaster helping create geriatrics as its own discipline in Canada, to just before his death,” said Paul O’Byrne, dean and vice-president of the Faculty of Health Sciences. “I am very grateful for all of his lifelong contributions to improving the health of Canadians.”

Parminder Raina, scientific director of the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging, added: “One of Canada’s first geriatricians and a physician at Mac, Dr. Bayne founded the Hamilton-Wentworth Group on Aging, the Gerontology Research Council of Ontario (GRCO) and led the Canadian Association on Gerontology in the ‘80s. His tireless work in the area of geriatrics and gerontology drove the infusion of a lot of provincial funding into research and training in aging at a crucial time.

“His powerful messages around death and dying are inspiring and important.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

March 1, 2021February 28, 2021

How the world sends off its dead

And what that says about us

by Geetika Jain

A great way to get under the skin of a living culture, especially a little-known one, is to learn about their thoughts, beliefs and rituals around death. Conversations about reincarnation, reunions with departed spirits, and the manner in which they send-off their loved ones might surprise you and lead to fascinating discoveries. While most rituals are rooted in ancient philosophies, modern science and technology is helping to develop sustainable options that can turn our lifeless barks into useful nuggets.

Whisperings of death are all around us. Statements of grief and love take form in flower bouquets and roadside memorials where a person might have lost their life in an instance. The names of loved ones are inscribed on park benches. They live on in academic scholarships, wings of hospitals, places of worship and most of all, in our memories. Their photographs are hung in our homes, shops and offices. While these may be familiar to us, in far-flung lands, other practices are thriving.

Wandering the lanes of the Old Quarter in Hanoi, Vietnam, my friend and I came upon Hang Ma street with shops selling things made from paper. The stalls were festooned with rather unique paper replicas of houses, cars, motorcycles, washing machines, refrigerators, clothes, cell-phones, shoes, wallets, eye-glasses and wads of cash. These, it turns out, are bought by relatives of the deceased and burned on Wandering Soul’s Day. People believe that on this day the gates to the afterlife are opened for spirits to come back to the earth, and their ancestors can accept and enjoy the offerings. From their vantage point, death is by no means a final departure and the next world bears a strong resemblance to the present one.

Driving through the countryside in Kyrgyzstan, the captivatingly beautiful hills reared up all around me and my guide Kuban. We stopped to explore curious clusters that looked like giant birdcages. Kuban explained that these airy domes housed tombs. Influenced by Islam and nomadic traditions, the Kyrgyz have uniquely adapted their grave coverings to look like yurts, with views of the open skies that are close to their hearts. While the Soviet occupation saw many mosques razed to the ground, the graves were left alone, and they continue to tell the story of the people held deep within their wombs.

High up in the folds of the Himalayas, several Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhists still opt for sky burials. In accordance with their beliefs, after a person’s passing, while the spirit is in transition, the body is a mere empty vessel to be given back to nature. In an extreme act of compassion, the naked body, often chopped into pieces, is left out in the open as food for scavenging vultures and predators. When full, they spare small creatures such as the mice, marmots, weasels and hares.

The respected priests, the Lamas, encourage people to confront death openly, and to feel the impermanence of life. Many a ritual object in the monasteries is made from human bones. The harsh, treeless landscape has also had a role to play in eliciting this practice, with the lack of wood for pyres or coffins and the earth being too hard to dig graves.

In Ladakh and the villages of the hinterland, if a baby dies before its teeth are cut, the dbon-po (astrologer) might recommend putting it in a small coffin and walling it up within the house to retain its g-yang, or good fortune and hoping its soul will re-enter the mother’s womb.

According to the ancient Zoroastrian faith, dead bodies must not defile the earth, water or air. Traditionally, they are cleansed in accordance with rituals and left in the ‘towers of silence’ to be consumed by vultures. The practice continues in a handful of places such as Yazd, Iran. In Mumbai and Hyderabad, the lack of vultures (many died from eating cow carcasses that contained the drug diclofenac) has made the community pivot to solar concentrators, where intense sunlight desiccates corpses as it passes through a fresnel lens.

In Longyearbyen, Svalbard, the northernmost town on the planet, it has been illegal to die since 1950. As the temperatures dip down to –43°C, there is constant permafrost in the ground. The archipelago belongs to Norwegians, who are mainly Christians, but they can’t bury their dead here, as the permafrost will preserve the bodies forever. Anyone expecting to die must fly to the mainland.

Over time, several polar explorers, whalers and scientists have lost their lives in Antarctica, where they might remain hidden forever, or make a macabre appearance as an iceberg calves and melts in the ocean. Similarly, as Everest melts, bodies of trekkers and Sherpas keep emerging from the ice.

On a trek through Mantadia Rainforest in Madagascar, as we looked out for creatures such as lemurs, indris and sifakas, our guide Eric Michel chatted with us about life on the island, describing the famadihana or ‘turning of the bones’ tradition. “We (Malagasy) believe that our dead ancestors influence our fortunes and fertility from the afterlife. Every 5-7 years, when enough money has been saved, our family plans a famadihana where the entire village comes together. Alcohol is passed around freely, food is served, and the festivities start. We make an opening in the family tomb to let out the bad smell, then begin pulling out one body after another. They’re re-wrapped in fresh fabric, even the crumbled ones. The band starts to play, people begin to dance, sing, and commune with the dead, rocking them, talking to them, filling them in on the latest news, introducing them to new family members, perhaps showing them a new bridge or house, and asking for specific blessings before placing them back. People are even more powerful once they die, so we must respect them.”

Also believing in an afterlife, the San Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert add bows and arrows, pots and fabrics to the graves of their dead, whose bodies are anointed in ochre and fat and buried in foetal position, facing east. The spot is topped with a stone cairn to keep it from being dug up by any animals.

Death rites are not always achingly solemn. In Barbados, a driver commemorates his grandmother, who passed four years ago, by hanging her smiling picture on a badge on his rear-view mirror. In Ethiopia’s remote Omo Valley, the sudden loud gunshots turned out to be part of a funeral procession with a touch of gangsta-verve. Guns and bullets are a luxury, swapped with precious cows and goats, and so firing them is a way of lavishing honour on the departed. In Spanta, Romania, people believe that death leads to a better life, and so it must be celebrated. The notion is reflected in the Cimitriul Vesel, the ‘merry cemetery’, dense with colourful paintings on tombs illustrating the dead person’s life that are often topped with light-hearted epitaphs.

Our death is our swansong, and the manner in which we go also reflects who we are. The religious rites that are handed down to us over generations have a consolatory feel, but many of these were established millennia ago, when there were far fewer humans, rivers were pure and thick forests covered our planet. These traditions now need to be revisited. Our awareness of environmental issues has been heightened. Let’s look outside our windows today and think afresh. By 2050, there will be 10 billion humans. Does cutting down trees for pyres and coffins, putting masses of carbon in the air and choking our waters with ashes sound right?

Shedding our reticence and donating our bodies to science and allowing our organs as hearts, livers, eyes to be used by others upon our passing is modern-day compassion. Preserving, not depleting our planet is the new mantra. Fresh ideas abound. The US-based company Eternal Reefs compresses human remains into a sphere that is attached to a reef in the ocean providing habitat for sea life. Resomation is a technique where alkaline hydrolysis breaks down and liquifies the body with no carbon emission. Capsula Mundi, an Italian company, makes organic pods into which bodies are placed and put in the earth. Seeds or saplings are planted just above, and they become nourishment for the growing tree. A simple version of this practice requires a spot, a sack and a sapling. If we can allocate land and turn our bodies into forests, it could be our most considerate legacy for future generations. A human and a tree growing into each other. What better consolation.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

February 28, 2021February 27, 2021

I chased the American dream.

It brought me back to my father’s deathbed in China.

Mangkuk Wong, the author’s father, in 1987.

By Xiaoyan Huang

I thought for sure he was dead: Whenever I cannot reach my father, now 86, I am convinced the day has come and that he has died alone in his apartment. It was nearly midnight in Shenzhen, China. I tried calling him on WeChat, on his cell, on his landline. No answer. I called his friend to check on him. He answered the doorbell that night and seemed okay, she reported. The picture she sent, though he was smiling, did not reassure me. I’m a cardiologist in Portland, Ore. One look at my father’s ashen color told me his end was near. A week later, he was hospitalized and diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer.

This event had a cruel symmetry, echoing what happened in 2003 when my mother suffered a fall and massive brain bleed. Same apartment. Same hospital. Even the pandemics, then and now, involve related viruses: SARS and the novel coronavirus. My mother had gone into a coma by the time I reached her bedside. After months of hospitalization, she was discharged home, comatose. My father kept her alive in a persistent vegetative state for five more years, with hired help and tube feeds, nearly bankrupting himself. Throughout that time and long after, I was overtaken by guilt. Thirty-four years ago, my parents supported their only child to pursue her education in the United States. It pained me to realize that as a physician, I was unable to save my mother’s life, and as a U.S. citizen, I never gave her the good American life she had asked of me.

This time, I was determined to do right by my father. Though I managed to leverage my connections as an established American cardiologist to get him VIP treatment in his local hospital, he adamantly declined further diagnostic testing or care. My father, a retired university professor, is fiercely independent, a loner. He told me he had lived a long, good life and wanted to die on his own terms. When I gently suggested getting a colonoscopy, tissue biopsy and perhaps advanced cancer therapy, he got mad: “I am fine, I can walk to the crematorium myself!”

Palliative and hospice care are not widely supported in China. When loved ones fall ill, spouses and children often show over-the-top devotion, fearing judgment by other family members and by society at large. In cases of terminal illness, the patients themselves almost never participate in discussions about the severity of the condition (a situation depicted in the 2019 film “The Farewell”). Family members are expected to pursue more aggressive treatment, even if medically futile, espousing blind optimism. The higher the price tag, the better the demonstration of filial piety. Dying at home is generally avoided because of superstition. In China, my father faced intimidating cultural stigma against his wish to stop treatment and die peacefully at home.

I wanted to support him, but it would mean figuring out his end-of-life care on my own. After consulting an oncologist friend, I packed my suitcase full of over-the-counter comfort care medicines. I also had to make arrangements to put my life on indefinite hold — applying for family medical leave, rescheduling appointments, asking colleagues to cover my patients and administrative duties, saying goodbye to my husband and children with no set return date.

Decades ago, I was fortunate enough to attend college in America on a full scholarship. Now it would take every inch of my immigrant success — leaning on all my resources and institutional affiliations — to take the return trip on which I would probably lose my remaining parent and sever my last tie with China. Travel during the pandemic is dauntingly difficult: I needed a special family emergency visa, two negative coronavirus tests within 48 hours of my flight and a time-stamped health clearance bar code from the Chinese Consulate. There were only a handful of flights between the countries each day; it was impossible to buy tickets online. With the help of a childhood friend’s wife, who runs a travel agency in China, I got one. The plane was packed. Everyone wore N95 masks, some with double masks, others with goggles, face shields, hazmat suits and gloves. The flight attendants wore disposable surgical gowns. People hardly ate or drank during the 15-hour flight, trying to minimize bathroom trips.

For two weeks, I was quarantined in a hotel room in Xiamen after landing. The first night, on a sleepless high, I made grandiose plans for catching up on emails and work. By day five, I started exercising by putting all 20 hotel-provided bottles of water into a backpack and pacing the room: 14 steps long, six steps wide, over and over. By day seven, each banging of the door by the hotel staff, announcing meals delivered to a chair outside, made me jump — as did the twice-daily temperature check. Finally, after 14 days and 11 negative coronavirus tests, I was released into the world.

When I finally got to my father’s bedside, suitcase in tow, it was almost anticlimactic. For a surreal second, I felt I was rounding on an elderly patient, as I do every day in my hospital. Reunion in Chinese style, even in such weighted circumstances, is restrained. No matter how many times I had cried in private, there would be no embrace, not even a handshake, no tears in front of him. I instinctively checked on key physical exam findings: Was his neck vein elevated, and legs swollen, suggesting congestive heart failure? I stopped myself just short of probing his abdomen. My hand went, instead, to tuck him into his comforter. At this moment and going forward, I wanted to be only his daughter.

A few days later, I brought my father home. Together with a friend of his, I took care of him: shopping for and cooking his favorite meals; helping him shower and dress; dispensing his few remaining pills. Back in his own environment, my father instantly began feeling better, eating more. We still don’t use the word “cancer” or talk openly about his prognosis, but this feels like neither denial nor forced optimism. Instead, we focus on the concrete tasks at hand. When he has energy, I sit by his bed listening to him talk about his life, about history, philosophy and technology. I tell him about his grandsons and their girlfriends, my work and my life.

I began this journey initially stricken by grief, and by fear of reliving the guilt my mother’s death had induced. But I came to appreciate an unexpected symmetry: Years ago, my parents sacrificed to set me free and allow me to pursue a new life in America. In returning to China, I sacrificed to set my father free and help him have a good death. The first choice is relatively common and often celebrated; the latter is unconventional, even frowned upon — seen as almost unnatural in a culture that prioritizes extending life. But the limbo of quarantine, and all the hurdles I had to surmount en route, brought me to a realization: how important it is, for the living and the dying, to share a moment of peace. In that moment, love is no longer measured by the quantity of pills, the number of CT scans or the extent of heroic medical interventions, but by time spent together.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

February 22, 2021February 21, 2021

Muslim Funeral Rites Explained

by Wycliffe Nyamasege

For many years, Muslim funeral rituals have attracted attention from Christian counterparts mainly because of their simplicity.

Yesterday, two high profile octogenarians, who played key roles in Kenyan politics and civil service, were laid to rest.

One, ex-minister Simeon Nyachae, a Christian of a Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) faith and Senator Yusuf Haji of the Muslim faith. The two funeral services sparked debate on social media with a section of Christians seeking answers on Muslim funeral rites.

Nyachae, who died on February 1 at the Nairobi Hospital aged 88, was laid to rest two weeks later at his Nyosia village in Kisii County. His remains had been preserved at the Lee Funeral Home for 14 days before being flown to Kisii on Sunday.

On the other hand, the late Garissa Senator, who died on Monday morning, was interred at the Lang’ata Muslim Cemetry, in Nairobi, miles away from home, less than 24 hours after his death. He was 80 years old.

The cost of giving a loved one a decent send off took centre stage on the social media debate, with many Kenyans agreeing that Muslim burials cost way less.

Mohammed Hersi, a hotelier and vocal commentator on social media, took to his Facebook page to explain what happens when a Muslim dies.

In Muslim, Hersi said, the burial of a loved one should take place as quickly as possible after death and preferably within 24 hours.

Where the cause of death is uncertain this may and should be determined prior to burial.

The person who has died is washed as quickly as possible after death and wrapped in a simple white shroud For men, up to three pieces of cloth may be used for this purpose, for women, five.

In many countries, a coffin is not used, but in the UK, where this is often forbidden, a coffin is permitted.

Hersi revealed that the Muslim rarely transport a body.

“You get buried where you passed away…For us your burial is where death (maut) will find you, ” he wrote.

The Muslim burials timings are mainly dictated by prayers times.

The Muslim community prays five times a day: Fajr at 5am, Dhuhur at 1pm, Asr 4pm, Maghrib 6.30pm and Isha 8pm.

“Most of the burial prayers would coincide with the 1pm or 4pm prayers for various reasons ranging eg to allow immediate family like children to arrive etc, ” he said.

“We try and avoid evening or nighttime burial unless it is a case of an accident and departed ought to be laid to rest as quickly as possible.”

Preparation of the body

The body is prepared either at home or even at some mosque.

Ghusl is the full-body ritual purification mandatory before the performance of ritual and janaza prayer.

The remains are wrapped in a simple plain cloth (the Kafan) which costs less than Sh500. After that, instead of a coffin, the deceased is transported to the mosque in a Janaza that is returned after use and reused by another family.

“Our mosque in South C does that very well and a few masjid in Mombasa, ” he added.

When a Muslim passes on in town, it becomes the responsibility of fellow muslims to give the departed brother or sister a decent burial.

The body is then carried away in a Janaza and is placed at the back of the mosque awaiting the normal prayers to happen.

Immediately after the normal prayers, an announcement is made informing worshippers of the presence of a body of a departed brother or sister and requested to join the family in burying their kin.

“It is considered a blessing to take part in such even if you were not known to the departed. We then bring the body to the front of the congregation, ” he added.

Before the body leaves for its final resting place, the family led by the eldest son and the Imam ask if there is anyone who owed the departed anything or if the departed owed anyone anything.

The son or immediately male family member are expected to take responsibility for the debt.

“We then all stand behind the Janaza and final prayers are led by the imam. Sometimes we have more than one body so they are all laid out in a line, ” he said.

The service takes less than 10 minutes and thereafter the body is picked by young men, who mostly are not even known to the deceased, and taken to the final resting place.

Once at the graveyard immediate family members preferably sons and brothers to the deceased will go inside the grave which is always ready.

The body is removed from the Janaza and placed inside a grave that has a mould of mud which acts as a pillow where the head of the deceased is placed. Additionally, the body faces the right side towards Mecca (the Muslim community faces Mecca when praying).

Wooden planks are used to enclose where the body is placed and if there is no wood, concrete slabs can be used.

Once done the family members step out, the grave is filled with soil.

Unlike in Christian funeral rituals, Muslims don’t observe protocols as everyone is considered equal regardless of their status.

“Once done a quick sermon is given hardly 5 to 10 minutes and we are done. We make no speeches and there are no protocols at the mosque or at the burial site based on your worldly position, ” he said.

“At the mosque and burial site we are all equal.”

In Muslim funeral rites, women are not allowed at the gravesite. If they attend, they can only watch from a distance.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

February 19, 2021February 19, 2021

What to Do With the Restless Dead?

by John Beckett

Here are the last questions from the most recent Conversations Under the Oaks. They’ve been edited for length and clarity, but I’ve done my best to preserve the thinking behind the questions.

What are your thoughts on the restless dead? We have a potter’s field here locally that I feel very drawn to. It was recently rediscovered and is the resting place of the homeless, the unidentified, the stillborn, etc. from around the 1900s to the early 1960s. I feel a deep connection to this place. Any thoughts?

There is a very old idea that people who die sudden and/or violent deaths, who die with unresolved issues, or who do not receive proper funeral rites do not move on to whatever comes next, but instead remain here as earthbound spirits. Alternatively, their souls – the essence of who they are – may move on, but the “energetic remains” of their trauma sticks around and occasionally the living bump into it.

I have some experience with this, but I’m far from an expert in it. If you have serious specific issues, I recommend you find someone who’s dealt with this a lot more than I have. But in general…

First, simply listen

What do you feel? What do you hear? One voice or many voices? Is there an attempt at communication, or is it just noise?

A few years ago I visited Chickamauga National Military Park, site of the second most deadly battle of the U.S. Civil War. I grew up 15 miles from Chickamauga and visited it occasionally – I always felt like the dead were near. But on this trip, I heard them screaming. Here’s what I had to say at the time:

By my belief system and the belief systems of most, those who died here went on to the afterlife, however you conceive of such a place. Those who believe in reincarnation would likely assume that many have been reborn, perhaps several times.

Perhaps there are a few souls trapped here 153 years later, but surely not many. Perhaps the physical remains (both human and man-made, like the cannons) facilitate a connection across the realms. I don’t know.

I just know I heard the dead screaming.

First, I would listen. I would make offerings to all those there, and if possible, to specific individuals. Keep in mind that most were Christians in life – be respectful of their beliefs and expectations, without disrespecting your own.

I would help keep the place clean, to the extent that such activities are permitted by the landowners. People get nervous when anyone takes an interest in a cemetery – they often jump to conclusions of malefic magic, even if they have no idea what that means.

I would not attempt to cleanse the place. I wouldn’t attempt to help any spirit “move on” unless I was sure I was dealing with one individual spirit and not either energetic remains or a conglomeration of spirits.

Mainly, listen.

Worship and Magic in Paganism and Christianity

Here’s a question on the different approaches to magic in Paganism and Christianity.

I’ve been thinking about the underlying structure of magic and religion. With Christianity, it seems like they combine devotionals to a deity with executing magic to invoke the deity’s power. With Paganism, it seems like there is more focus on magic as an individual practice.

A question like this requires the disclaimer that Christianity and Paganism are both broad and diverse traditions. Southern Baptists, Roman Catholics, and the United Church of Christ are all Christians, but they take very different approaches to it. Likewise, Gardnerian Wiccans, Celtic Reconstructionists, and kitchen witches are all generally (though not universally) considered Pagans, but they have very different beliefs and practices. So any attempts to compare “Christianity” and “Paganism” are necessarily broad, high-level, and will have many exceptions.

Further, much of what’s generally considered “folk magic” is done in the context of a Christian worldview, even though it’s unsanctioned. This question is concerned with official approaches, so that’s how my response is structured.

Let’s start with some definitions. Worship is declaring what is worthy. Magic is the art and science of creating change in conformance with will (that’s Crowley’s definition – I haven’t found a better one). Religion is the common beliefs and especially the common practices that bind a group of people together.

Magic: one form or many forms?

In orthodox Christianity, magic can only be done with the intercession of the Christian God. Therefore, it makes sense to incorporate pleas for such intercession with rites of worship.

In most forms of Paganism, magic is understood in a broader sense. My Threefold Theory of Magic says that while magic works by the intercession of Gods and spirits, it also works by our manipulation of unseen forces, and by psychological programming. So while we can incorporate magic into our worship (and I frequently do, especially in the big High Day celebrations), we have other options that Christians don’t.

Further, we have many different magical systems: energy work, herbal magic, stones and crystals, sigil magic, visualization, bardic magic, and others. These diverse systems lead to a diversity of practice.

All religions have something to say about magic, even if what they say is “magic doesn’t exist.” What they say about magic will determine how – or if – they work magic. Pagans see magic as much broader than Christians see it, so we have more approaches to working it.

Predictions for the next few years

The last question is a big one.

I’m interested in your thoughts on the next few years: predictions about Pagan culture and the Big Tent, but also how things are going to go with Nazi Pagans. And predictions for the spiritual side of things.

I occasionally mention the Big Tent of Paganism, but my enthusiasm for it has significantly waned over the past few years. My dream was that we would build robust individual traditions, and then work together on issues of common interest and to build pan-Pagan institutions. But it’s clear there is little interest in building those individual traditions, much less working together across traditions. The vast majority of Pagans simply want to do their own thing in their own way, and far too many live in mortal fear of someone “telling them what to do.”

I think we’re going to have to do a lot more work of creating traditions before people will start to congregate around them. And those traditions are going to have to be centered around things that people can do on their own, because that’s what they want.

I’m sad that the questioner mentioned Nazi Pagans. Or more exactly, I’m sad that they felt the need to mention them. Because they do. There are Nazis and White Supremacists in our wider society, so of course some of them are going to find their way to Paganism. I don’t think that’s going to change. We can and should attempt to isolate them and to deny their legitimacy to use Pagan concepts and imagery. But forget reclaiming the swastika – it’s lost for at least a hundred years, and maybe forever.

The currents of magic are getting stronger

On the spiritual side of things, I think the intersections of this world and the Otherworld are going to become stronger and more frequent. Expect more encounters with the Fair Folk. The currents of magic are going to continue to strengthen – that means if you can work magic, you can work more and better magic. What won’t change is that those who practice regularly will do more and better magic than those who don’t.

We are in the early years of Tower Time. It’s not going to be 2020 for the rest of our lives, but things in general are going to be challenging. But the chaos that is disrupting normalcy is also creating new opportunities: in business, in politics, in religion, in magic, and in virtually every area of life.

Those who pay attention and seize the opportunities will thrive. Those who cling to the past will not.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!