When our body ceases to function, what happens to it? Embalming? Organ donation? Cremation? Burial? It’s time to think through what we want to happen to this physical form.
Pets face all kinds of legal restrictions in life, but once they cross the
Each body has its own way of shutting down due to illness or injury. In a natural death, your breathing will simply slow until it stops. That is out of our control. Eventually all of our bodies will wear down to nothing more than ashes and dust. But American culture struggles with accepting mortality. We don’t like to age; we don’t like ugly. Unfortunately, neither idealizing nor ignoring death will make it go away.
In the Victorian era, birth and death happened at home, so people knew more or less what to expect. But that’s not true for us! And because we don’t talk much about death and dying we are left with whispered stories, scenes from movies, and random bits that cross social media.
While many of us have heard of that phenomenon (and ones like it) referred to as a “near-death experience,” Parnia prefers to call it an “after-death experience.”
Considering what happens to our bodies and the bodies of our loved ones after death is a new thing for many of us.
