death & dying

I’m Jonathan Baker, a writer in Canyon, Texas, and I’ve been asked to talk a little about this month’s Radio Readers Book Club Read, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast.

North American Indian burial practices varied widely across the continent.  In some of these cultures, the recently deceased’s name was never spoken again so as to avoid angering the spirit. 

The spirit world, in general, was revered and respected among American Indian groups yet may have been met with some trepidation and even anxiety. 

My mother once told me that women who garden can reconcile themselves to the cycle of life and death more peacefully. I have kept up gardening, perhaps because of that advice. Here are poems by Native-heritage women, including myself, that draw on nature to reconcile death’s paradox.

The novel Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese is about a boy, Franklin Starlight, whose ne’er do well father shows up in his life not to help him as a mentor, but to demand help with his death process.

Eldon Starlight has not earned the right to request anything of this abandoned teenager, yet he does. End of life issues also may bring many of us face to face with relatives who make unearned demands. The grueling passage of death may cause difficult moments in even the best relationships.

Hi, Radio Readers – I’m Melany Wilks talking to you from my home in Colby, KS.

I had been told by a friend to read the book, Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande. So, on a long drive 16 - hour drive with my husband, we popped the CD’s into the stereo and began listening. The book held our attention, and then we purchased the book.

Elizabeth Kubler Ross once called America a “death-denying society,” a description not necessarily shared across cultures. In Bhutan – one of the happiest countries on the globe -- talking about death at least once a day is considered a necessity. Hyolmo Buddhists in Nepal regard dying as an intricate art to be learned throughout life. And in Papua, New Guinea, older people often describe themselves as “being the process of dying.”