It’s Time to Talk About Death

Cremations are among cremation services offered in Tallahassee, FL. But before and after cremations, we should be talking about death as a part of life. Most of us are, quite frankly, afraid of death. It’s mysterious. It’s scary. It’s the unknown.

But it hasn’t always been that way. It’s only in the last 75 years or so that death has become such a taboo subject. There are several reasons for that.

One reason is because, as society became more mobile, extended families no longer lived near or with each other in housing arrangements with lots of support that accommodated the living and the dying. Once families began to spread out, and there were no longer family members living close by who could enable elderly people to live out their final days in the safety and comfort of their own homes or an immediate relative’s homes, the nursing home industry sprung up and our elderly relatives were sent there to live until they died.

In the 1970’s, retirement communities and assisted living facilities sprang up almost overnight. They marketed themselves aggressively to families as a place where the worries of keeping up a household could finally be put aside by older people, and they could spend their last years in a community where they could enjoy activities and leisure, with medical care onsite if they got ill or as they began to age and die.

Touted as better than nursing homes – and, for the most part, they were in many ways – these communities have flourished for 50 years. Adult children could assuage their guilt of putting Dad and Mom away, because these places were nice and offered more amenities than some hotels. Nursing homes, in the meantime, became a place where the elderly poor ended up because their families were not nearby to take care of them until they died.

Another reason why death has become so alien to us is that medicine has advanced so dramatically in the last 75 years in procedures and medications that can make people live so much longer that it has almost fostered a false belief that we can live forever. However, all the medical advances have come at a cost. Although we may be able to squeeze out more quantity of life, we often do it at the expense of quality of life.

But because death is the enemy, many people are willing to live with that tradeoff.

It’s time to change that. Sometimes living is really worse than dying. If there is no quality of life, then being alive doesn’t represent what being alive is supposed to represent.

If we learn about what happens when we die – how the body begins to prepare for death, shutting down slowly over a period of months until it finally shuts down for good – and we talk with our loved ones about how we want to die and where we want to be, then we can bring death out of the dark and into the light.

We need to talk about what we want after we die. We need to discuss funeral plans, our legacies, and even things we may want our family members or friends to have after we’re gone. If we start talking about death, not only will we make peace with it, but we may make the aftermath of our deaths more peaceful for our family.

For more information about cremation services offered in Tallahassee, FL, including grief resources, our caring and knowledgeable staff at Lifesong Funerals & Cremations is here to assist you. You can visit our funeral home at 20 S. Duval St., Quincy, FL 32351, or you can call us today at (850) 627-1111.