“The movement seeks to eliminate the silence around death-related topics, decrease anxiety surrounding death, and encourages more diversity in end of life care options available to the public.” — Wikipedia
Life Is Impermanent
I was initially going to write an article on “green funerals,” but I thought I’d do something different. You see, I can rant for hours about all the different ways you can handle your body after you die.
How to plan your funeral before you die, and so on. However, I think it would be beneficial to talk about why I find the Death Positivity Movement so important.
Now, I won’t lie. I think death is scary — the inevitable end. How life is so impermanent is intimidating. It’s downright uncomfortable to think about, but the first step in fixing a problem is to acknowledge it, and I’m afraid to die.
I think we all are in our in own ways. Even for those that believe in Heaven and Hell, death is scary and sad.
Comic Books & Deaths
I’ve always liked what people consider creepy and scary. I blame my older siblings for introducing me to comic books and monster movies/books! Not really, I appreciate them for it. I’m the person who had her funeral planned out before her wedding. That’s how creepy I am.
At a young age, people told me that I would have been a SIDS i.e. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, statistic. ~2,500 babies die of SIDS each year. So, in a way, death has been with me since I was a baby.
The idea of me not existing has always been at the back of my mind. I’m not mad that people told me; in fact, I think it was a blessing. I’ve known how life is so fleeting, just by knowing I almost died.
It sounds poetic, but the hard truth is, everything ends. We are going to die. That is life, and though we don’t want to talk about it, we should.
I Did It My Way
Many cultures handle death differently. Some celebrate it, while others have professional mourners show up to funerals. We handle grief and death differently, but from my experience, when you are capable of talking about it. When you are capable of laughing and crying about it, it takes a big load off your shoulders.
Feeling scared is natural. Fearing death is natural. Moreover, the best way to beat this fear is to talk about it. Is to acknowledge it. When I’m lost, and in a dark place, I think about how I want my funeral handled. I think about how I want everybody I know to be laughing and remembering me as I was. So, naturally, I came up with a funny funeral/wake.
When I die, I want to be either cremated or aquamated, while Another One Bites the Dust by Queen plays in the background. I want someone to put a few of my ashes, if it’s legal, on their food, and when they eat it, I want them to yell, “I’m a cannibal!”
I want everyone to wear tacky, brightly-colored Hawaiian shirts, and I want all my happy music. I have a playlist for this, to blare from speakers. I want someone to show up in a Grim Reaper costume, with a cartoony scythe, and wander the party making sure everyone is having fun. I want people to be happy. I want them to laugh, and I want them to feel loved, even if I’m not there with them.
I People To Feel Loved
When I think about this, I remember all my loved ones, and that keeps me going. Even in the dark days, when hope is hard to come by. Because, when that day comes.
When I pass on, I want people to feel loved. I want them to see that life is a precious thing that we are blessed to have. Also, death reminds us of this. That’s why the Death Positivity Movement is so prominent and why I’m a positive death advocate. Also, that’s why I will never stop talking
about death.
© Gothic Bite Magazine 
Awesome post L.A. !!! Death is something that we can’t control so we obsess about it. I used to get myself all worked up about dying til my mom died 14 years ago,now not as much because I know she’d their waiting for me.💋💖 shared on all my socials!😉
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Death is natural, but I’m not entirely convinced the fear of death is. Epicurus was (as least in the context of Western philosophy) the first to put forward his famous (if not notorious!) argument, that it’s foolish to fear something that exists only when we do not.
To a great extent, the fear of death is a result of moralistic attitudes that are entirely artificial (“don’t do this, or else you’ll go to hell”). There is undeniably an existential element to it, too. For some (most?) people, their own annihilation is impossible to envision. It’s equally undeniable that the death of a person is unfathomably sad for those left behind.
Ultimately, the fear of death – like all fears – is temporal in nature. Another great philosopher, Schopenhauer, put it aptly in his ‘The World as Will and Representation:
“[Reflection] endows man with that thoughtfulness which so completely distinguishes his consciousness from that of the animal, and through which his whole behaviour on earth turns out so differently from that of his irrational brothers. He far surpasses them in power and in suffering. They live in the present alone; he lives at the same time in the future and the past. They satisfy the need of the moment; he provides by the most ingenious preparations for his future, nay, even for times that he cannot live to see. They are given up entirely to the impression of the moment, to the effect of the motive of perception; he is determined by abstract concepts independent of the present moment.”
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