Letter 28 – Death Culture

 

Dear Garrett,

I wish I had a death culture to attach myself to. It seems like so many of us do not have a death culture in our society. This makes it hard for those of us who are grieving to be ok with acknowledging our loss. It would be great if we had some meaningful, built-in rituals surrounding death and the process of grieving it. A recognition of how hard it is for us left standing to re-enter the land of the living.

I saw a tv show set in the eighteen-hundreds where the family of someone who died wore black armbands, signaling, I’ve been hurt, I am in a period of mourning, don’t expect too much of me for a while. Or maybe the Mexican day of the dead, where it is built into their lives to have a day to recognize and reconnect with dead loved ones. Acknowledging their existence and telling them that they were loved. Many cultures outside of mine offer rituals for the dead, the dying, and the living left behind.

I suppose the seeking of guidance through grief is my ritual. And the seeking to understand what has become of you. Unfortunately, I don’t ascribe to a religion so I don’t have that to fall back on. It’s possible that all religions are true in regard to death. These structured ways through which to seek the divine. It may also be possible to find the divine outside of religion, though I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about that. Before now.

I’m lucky that my dad gave me all these books to read as a teenager, and that I read them. Books on Buddhism, reincarnation, past lives, meditation. I didn’t do much with the material other than read it, but it wasn’t an alien field I was playing on when I started to read more books about life after death. I’ve been reading pretty much without discrimination. Here’s a title. Ok. I’ll read it. Here’s another title. I’ll read that. Bring it all to me, and I will read and read and read. And I will pour it all into the well of this loss and my seeking to understand and let it stew there for a good long time. Something may come of it. Maybe something already has. I consider the realm of what is possible. Which honestly, I hadn’t spent any good amount of time ever thinking about before. Now, I might be more open. To the possibilities.