"...for to him who is born, death is sure..."
Bhagavad Gita

When I was 25, I was a graduate student desultorily working on a masters in comparative politics. Yes, I was handsomely equipped to fail. So I sold my car, broke up with my girlfriend, and traveled to India through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

In India I saw real poverty and suffering. The burning ghats, and the Towers of Silence, where the parsis place their dead was my first exposure to death. What a shock to see what I saw.

How about you. When was your first experience of death.

My mom's chihuahua ran into the street and was run over. She picked up his limp body and cried. I was maybe four...

Fuck! That's brutal for a kid. (((hugs))).

When my grandfather died, I was seven years old. My older cousins took me on a "tour" of the funeral parlor. They took me into all the different rooms and proceeded to tell me to look out because the stiffs were coming back alive. Eventually, they played tag, and hide and go seek among the caskets and rooms. I was scared shitless.

I hadn't seen the one cousin for many years. When we finally got back together, he said, "Boner, I'm sorry for the stuff at grandpa's funeral." We laughed as I told him he basically scarred me for life!

I can't stand viewings and Morg viewings with the bodies dressed in temple clothes are especially gross for me.

I got over my fear of death and hatred about all things morbid by watching copious amounts of "Six Feet Under." The Stiff's Boner.

I refuse to look at the body in the casket. It started with my dad's funeral. I figured correctly: I do not have a memory/image of a dead father in my mind...just the smiling guy on the golf course, or sitting in his chair, or presiding at the dinner table. I recommend this course of action when you have the choice.

I never saw my Dad's body (my choice). I remember him waving to me as I drove from my parents' home. I held my mother's hand as she passed. I made the sign of the cross on her forehead, said the Our Father, and gave her back to God. That was many years ago. I miss my parents despite the flaws. Gotta sign off now, Dawg, the tears are coming. I love you, Bro.

None of my relatives began dying until I was well into my twenties.

Before then, though...when I was in junior high...one of my fellow students died totally unexpectedly, and it was enormously shocking to all of us.

There had been a slumber party, and the girls at that party were experimenting: one girl would take a deep breath and hold it, during which she would then bend over from the waist, and another girl would punch her hard in the stomach---and the point of this one-two-three process was the hoped-for production of something on the order of an altered state.

When this girl tried it, though, something went wrong and she died.

It was shocking enough to our school at large that I think most of us grew up a few years in a matter of a few weeks...and after that we were, in general anyway, significantly more mature than would have probably otherwise been the case.

I know what you are talking about regarding India, most especially from: A YANKEE AND THE SWAMIS, by John Yale, which recounts his experiences when (prior to him taking monk's vows in the Ramakrishna Order) he insisted on going to India FIRST. He wanted to check out what he was getting himself into, for the rest of his life, before he took his vows and, over the objections of the head of our Vedanta Temple, Swami Prabhavananda (who had been born and raised in India---and who told John Yale that India was "too dirty" to go to).

They fought about it, and in the end, John Yale did go.

(This is awkward for me: John Yale was a fully grown-up adult when I met him as a three-year-old, and he was someone I idolized from that time through my early and into my mid-adolescence, so although I never, ever called him "John," I also never knew him as "Mr. Yale," either---and, later, I didn't know him at all when he took his vows and received his Sanskrit name: Swami Vidyatmananda.)

(There are three used copies of this book available, from different book dealers, on www.abebooks.com ---the cheapest at $10.00, and I think with free shipping. I don't recommend the other two copies because the $19.95 and $30.00 prices, from different book dealers, are absurd.)

I learned a great deal from John Yale, and from the words he wrote about encountering death full-on, and of the pervasive poverty of the India that Swami Prabhavananda so much did NOT want him to experience.

I think you and John Yale would have gotten along splendidly, brianberkeley!

What you have described sounds like the trip of a lifetime...

P.S. If you happened to see the Ganges, near where they burn the bodies, is it really true that you can see arms and legs and other body parts floating in the river water? This has always been the part that squicked me out the most.

The night of my 18th birthday. I went down to the pub as planned, to meet up with a friend. From there we were going to partay the night away. Only she never turned up. I saw her boyfriend at the bar so asked where she was. He said he'd killed her. I was a bit annoyed and asked a few times but he just pretty much said the same thing. 'I put a knife in her chest and killed her'.

Turns out he did. They'd been using drugs, she dared him to do it, so he did. He left the bar and went down the the police station. Woke up there the next day with out any memory of the night before. I'll never forget my 18th birthday.

I am so sorry, blakballoon...

...I cannot even imagine how awful that would have been for you, and especially at that vulnerable time in your life.

I have no words...

What an absolute waste of two lives so young. He ended up being acquitted though I think.

I was baptised into the church about 3 years later.
Sigh* At least I hung out with a different crowd then I guess.

Tevai,

It is true that the bones are thrown into the Ganges. But there are turtles that eat organic material. Or so I was told.

For a Hindu, to be cremated on the sacred Ganges, the Ganga ma, is to released from the wheel of life, samsara.

I presume you know, Brian, how Rudyard Kipling played on Samsara?

There is a scene early in the book Kim, in which the little boy squats by an old monk as an imperial army passes on its way north to Afghanistan. The two jointly contemplate the wheel on a canon carriage but derive diametrically opposed meanings from it.

To the boy it means adventure: soldiers moving north towards battle and glory. It signifies the things he can do as he grows up and takes control over his own fate. It is the untested optimism of youth. To the old man, however, the turning of the wheel amid the dust of a scorching hot day represents Samsara, the process by which beings are bound to the material world and all its futility, pain, loneliness, and sadness.

The old man and the boy speak of the mechanism, how important and symbolic it is, but their common vocabulary masks an underlying irony. For they are viewing the wheel from different ends of life.

Another phenomenal question, Brian.

I may answer it when I have some time, the problem being that like most of your questions it deserves serious effort. I guess death for me is multi-faceted; it appeared, and will probably continue to appear, in different ways at different points in my life. I guess that sounds pretty Indian. . .

Anyway, I meanwhile wanted to say that several of the posters I admire most have already clustered around this topic. Greetings, all.

I am the youngest child of 5, so my parents were older than the average - ditto my aunts and uncles
I had an Aunt - Maud - whom lived in a large house in Notting hill - she died when I was about 7 or 8.
I dont remember her much, except as a kindly, old aunt, who seemed rather grand and the epitome of the victorian lady. When I think of her, I think of her being dressed in a victorian ballgown, but this was the 1960's so I think my memory is coloured by imagination rather than fact.

I wasn't allowed to go to the funeral, and i dont know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I think I spent more time coming to terms with her leaving, than if I had been allowed to attend the funeral and got some closure.

One of my Neices - who is extremely gullible - went to a seance and told us that she had contacted Aunt Maud who gave some meaningless platitudes -- totally unlike her personality in real life, where she was down-to-earth and eminently sensible.
I think that is one of the spurs which made me look into spiritualism and join the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF)

I was very young. My family was in the kitchen preparing for Thanksgiving. I believe it was the night before. My dad, who always made the stuffing, was chopping away. Then he got the phone call saying that one of his brothers had died. My parents put everything back in the fridge, packed us up, and departed for the next state over. As a young child, it was very confusing to lose the holiday. Don't people always have holidays?

Lots wife,

Good morning.

My father had the entire collected works of Kipling in our bookcase. I grew up reading his entire repertoire. Kim changed my life, and started a lifelong obsession with Asia.

I think Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad captured the essence of Asia. Read kiplings Plain Tales from the Hills, about the early Afghan wars.

I have thought of posting about Kipling, but I'm not sure it would be of interest. BTW, read a good biography of Kipling. He was not a nice guy.

Lights red strobed shine in the broad window above me reaching to the ceiling that usually let in only starlight in the dark country night.

The next morning my mother told me "You can't go over to grandma's house" (for lunch) "today. Grandpa died last night. You can't go over to grabdma's for two weeks, she's very upset."

I was 2 or 3 possibly 4 years old.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2016 11:48AM by paintinginthewin.

The next was when I was 25. My step-dad was attacked, killed, and robbed while digging for fishing bait in a remote beach area.

Born in SLC, my family (parents, older brother, and I) lived in a duplex. The other side of the duplex housed my great-grandparents on my mother's side. My earliest (and fondest) memories of childhood involve them, including sitting on grandma's lap watching black and white TV coverage of JFK's funeral, while she softly sobbed. I was just short of 4 years old.

About a year later, I came home from school one day, and headed over to their house to get a snack as usual. As I went through the gate that separated our back yards, I saw a pair of legs among grandpa's rose bushes, which he tended enthusiastically. I thought he might be laying in the dirt, digging new spots for plantings. As I got close, though, I could see he was face-down, and at an odd angle, and it didn't look right. I went over and pulled on his shoulder to raise up his face, and blank, unseeing eyes stared back at me. I started to cry, and ran to grandma's house. When she asked me what was wrong, I told her grandpa was dead. She made me stay in the house, and she went out back. A few minutes later she came in, not a tear in her eye, and calmly called the police (this was way before 911!).
She sat down with me, hugged me, and said I was right -- grandpa was gone.

She'd spent 78 years with this man. They loved each other to the end. He was 99, she was 94 at the time. She didn't tell me he'd gone to a "better place" or any such thing, she just said that it was his time, he'd lived a long and good life, and not to cry -- but to remember how much I'd loved him, and he had loved me.

She handled it so well (he'd had heart problems for a while, it's not like it was unexpected). She knew he was "ready." She helped me not fear dying, but to cherish living well. And to be satisfied after a long life that you'd been a good person, raised a good family, and made some small mark on the world.

Nine years later, as a teenager, I was at her bedside when it was her time. Lots of relatives visiting. I took my turn, held the slightly cold hand of this wonderful woman I'd loved all my life, and told her: "It's OK, grandma. It's your time. I won't cry. You lived a good and long life. I'll remember how much I loved you, and how much you loved me. And I'll miss you." I'm not sure she heard me. It probably doesn't matter if she did or not. It was her time, and she left a legacy of love and a life well lived that I still cherish.

BTW, though they were officially LDS, and temple-married, they were both "jack." Drank coffee, never went to church, didn't care about it. My mom, though she cared about them, considered them a "poor influence" on us kids. She was so wrong...

Such wonderful memories even though it was during sad times. Thank you for sharing.

This is beautiful, Hie...

[tears in my eyes...thinking of my Grandpa...]

<hugs to all>

My mom worked (at a big cafeteria downtown, I can't remember the name of it! Anybody remember the big SLC cafe in the '60's?), so grandma and grandpa were my caretakers and playmates. They were great at both :)

What a lovely story, Hie. How wonderful that your great-grandparents lived right next door to you.

Kolob,

An excellent recounting, thanks

I spent most of my childhood believing I killed my mother.

She died from complications from childbirth.

Heartless Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I spent most of my childhood believing I killed my
> mother.
>
> She died from complications from childbirth.

This is brutal...

I am so sorry, Heartless.

:( :( :(

My mom took me to a funeral when I was about 3. It wasn't anybody I knew, so I wasn't upset. I just thought the body looked like plastic and the eyes and mouth looked glued together. I didn't think it was very nice to glue someone's eyes and mouth together, so that bothered me.

I was 3-1/2 yrs old when my grandfather passed away. I remember him being taken away in an ambulance after having a heart attack.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2017 03:51PM by Amyjo.

I was 15 when my father died at home, from a kidney disease that both my son and I have inherited. (If I had known what I know now about how this disease is transmitted, I would never have borne children. I asked my OB-GYN, but he didn't know. The information just wasn't available at that time.) Dialysis was still experimental, and transplants not yet a reality.

My mother and grandmother were both RNs. My mother saw no point in keeping Dad in the hospital when we could care for him at home. The 3 of us took 8-hour shifts. Mother gave Dad glucose IVs until he went into his final coma. I learned how to watch for the IV fluid to run out, then remove the needle and put a Band-Aid over the injection site. That was just part of the job.

I felt hideously inadequate, because I didn't have nurses' training, and was afraid that I would inadvertently do something wrong. But ignorance was no excuse; I was expected to carry my share of the nursing duty.

When Dad died, he looked horrible. His face turned an ashen grey color that was even more stark against a crisp white pillow case. His eyes were partly open. I had been forbidden to cry or to display grief in any way. Mother handed me her phone book and told me to get on the phone and start notifying friends and family.

I remember seeing the hearse parked in our driveway after one of our neighbors, a doctor, had officially pronounced Dad dead. I felt a lump of ice in my chest, where my heart should have been.

Goldfish. If you want to teach your child about death, get a goldfish. Each one of them had a name, and a personality, and died a unique death. The saddest was "dolphin", who would jump with joy, whenever he would see us by his bowl. We were sure to keep the water level well below the rim, but as he got older, he jumped higher and higher. One day, we found him on the floor. He had jumped out of his bowl.

My daughter and I will not kill anything. We carefully and lovingly capture insects with a glass and a piece of paper, carefully, without harming their delicate wings or little legs, and lovingly release them into our garden. If the insect is really horrible-looking, we release it into the neighbor's garden.

My experiences of death have been too awful to recall. I will not.

Death has appeared to me several times but always in different guise. I don't understand it well and probably won't recognize it next time it comes.

My first experience was when I was five and my grandmother died. The funeral home was darkish, lit by weak florescent lights and the sun streaming through stained glass. She was in a casket at the front of the room. A succession of speakers said things that I could not understand. My parents did not let me see her body. All I remember is that strangely lit, solemn room, the boredom that came with the speeches and stilted hugs, and that strange elongated box into which I was not allowed to look.

My next meetings with death were spread over my elementary school years. My family had rabbits in three raised hutches in the backyard. I loved those animals, and responsibility for feeding them and cleaning their cages devolved on me because I was the only one who was deeply attached to them. I did not mind, although there were many days when I childishly forgot to change their food and water. I was closer to the rabbits than to my family, so large and busy that it was easy to become invisible.

Winters were hard in the mountains, cast starkly in the whites of snow and the black lines of dead trees. To preserve warmth, the rabbits would pile together in a corner of their respective hutches. Two or three times a year, one of their number would die overnight. I would arrive in the morning and find the living ones in a different corner and the dead animal alone, lying flat and hard and cold as stone, often covered by a light snowfall. The living creatures would stare anxiously at me from their warm huddle as I opened the cage, pried the frozen corpse loose from the cage floor and then carried it lifelessly to the garbage can by the side of the house.

Years later I was studying in a developing country. I lived several miles from the center of a capital city where, as in almost all developing countries, infrastructure investment had not kept pace with the economy's growth. Trucks, cars, motorcycles and bicycles battled for space on roads with far too few lanes. So what was in the early hours of the morning--after a night of dancing--a 20 minute taxi ride, became at the beginning of the work day a 60-90 minute bus ride through stop-and-go traffic and nauseating exhaust.

One morning the bus proceeded much, much more slowly than normal. I remember growing frustrated, wondering how late to my appointments I would be. Then our vehicle came upon the cause of the delay. Some distance ahead the middle lane was blocked. As the bus approached the obstruction I saw little fires, either cheap traffic flares or incense burners, that guided the cars into other lanes. A grayish-brown tarp came into view, and then a little boy in school clothes squatting next to it, his chest heaving. Finally I saw the shape of an equally small body under the tarp and a mangled bicycle to the side. The cars and trucks and buses and bicycles jostled for position in the lanes that were still open, honking and belching noxious fumes. It was too noisy to hear the boy's sobs.

More recently I lost a sibling. He had been a deeply committed Mormon and father. But he suffered some setbacks and his ward turned on him, saying and believing things that were not true. He grew depressed and stopped taking care of himself. After a few years, his defenses weakened, he caught a disease that is almost never deadly but quickly poisoned him. Two of us found him, lying on the floor in his bedroom, breathing laboriously. We sat him up and called for an ambulance. He was strong and unwittingly fought the paramedics, who had to strap him to a stretcher to get him out of the house. When he arrived at the hospital, they hooked him up to a variety of machines that kept his heart and lungs pumping. But what made him my brother was already gone, and a few days later we turned off the machines.

I don't know what death is. I have seen it in a dark distant box, in a pet's corpse, as much in a sobbing boy as in his deceased friend, and in an empty bedroom. It is a loss, a deprivation, a stillness where once there was energy and warmth. I fear death, not my own but rather that of those whom I love, those who make it possible to live.

I was 17 years old.

I fired on a vehicle breaking through a road block, with a 50 cal. Predictably, the occupants were killed. It wasn't very pleasant to discover that I had killed 4 kids who were about the same age as me.

In my 20's, crouching next to my bestie in a firefight. He took a round to his chest. I can still taste his blood in my mouth. Trying to explain to his widow why I made it home was one of life's more unpleasant moments.

Taking a rather technically excellent sniper shot to a target, only to realise later his 5 year old was directly behind.

Too much death.

Mind now in a bad place. Perhaps I should't have read this post.

Dad. I was nine.

He was the only one who loved me.

It destroyed me, as well as our family, in that order.

Minimum 10 years before I recovered enough to move a bit from reactive to proactive in how I lived my life. Even today, 55 years later, there are repercussions.

Every death since? Every family member, friend, pet? Dozens in a mass murder, hundreds in a hurricane, thousands in wars, tens of thousands in famines? Whatever.

My first brush with death occurred when I was three with the passing of my brother from cancer.

Our parents didn't prepare us siblings very well for his passing. They weren't handling it well themselves.

We weren't allowed to attend his funeral as we were too young.

When my baby sister died two years later as a newborn, I was allowed to see her at a viewing. But again, not able to attend her funeral.

We went as a family to visit the cemetery where both children were buried side by side. That was my introduction to death as a young child.

We were told they were "sleeping," while Jesus watched over them was the explanation our parents gave us kids.

At the age I was then, that Jesus was "watching over" my siblings as they slept had to mean his residence was the caretaker's shed a few steps away from their burial site. I'd glance over there to see if he'd make an appearance to walk out the door to come over and greet us.

Of course that didn't happen. But to a young child, it helped me accept what I didn't understand yet about the finality of death.