From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death
Written and Narrated By: Caitlin Doughty
Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
Secular, yes. Irreverent, yes. Honoring our dead loved ones and bringing grief into the light? Oh my, yesss!
I belong to a Facebook group called “The Good Death” which unabashedly worships the work of our author here, Caitlin Doughty. It’s also, MOST vigilantly, beYONd secular, to the point that, should one slip and add a Hallelujah one is drummed out, posthaste! Still, I like it because it sooo laughs at death and makes it like the biggest joke on earth, and one that we’ll all be enjoying the MASSIVE punchline to at some time or other. Plus, one of the last Modules in our End of Life Doula training was on caring for families after the death of their loved one, on helping with funeral arrangements at a time when, really, who has the mindset and focus for THAT whilst grieving desperately; and we were to make ourselves well-acquainted with After Death options, complete with a CEU Webinar coming up that is designed to keep ourselves informed about the transitioning “industry”.
I say this cuz From Here to Eternity is aaaallll After Death, aaaallll the time, and it’s marvelous. It’s so verrry true that our modern Western-Minded culture views death as something wrong that happens to us, some medical failing, like we didn’t “fight” hard enough, and death is what happens when the “battle” is lost. Rather than, say, it being a decidedly human experience, the second bookend to what started over on the Birth side.
Doughty starts things off mildly, startled by a ringing phone which maaaay mean business for her new startup funeral home, one where death is viewed as something natural to be managed and not a chance to sell formaldehyde and caskets. And then it’s off with a contemplation of global practices, to cultures where death and the bodies left behind might be viewed differently, treated differently. Off on death jaunts extraordinaire! where sometimes Doughty is getting the VIP tour as… she’s the only one interested enough to wanna learn and see for herself.
In a cab and asking to be driven to the Catacombs? Noooo, the driver declares: Nice lady like you? I’ll take you to the beach. You don’t look like a Catacombs type of lady.
Apparently Doughty most certainly IS a Catacombs gal. And a human remains composting gal. And a body on a funeral pyre gal. And a gal who will hold a somewhat mummified head for the camera (Okaaaay, she’ll do it, but she’s NOT going to smile for the camera!). She visits with families who keep the remains of loved ones for eons, or who dig them up so that they can keep the dead apprised of family happenings as time goes on. She drives with guides telling her: Oh dang it! We need to squeeze a pig in for the upcoming funeral cuz it’s: I bring a pig to your loved one’s funeral; you bring a pig to MY loved one’s funeral.
I read one reviewer who asked that others not be put off by what might seem distasteful, blasphemous, even sacrilegious. That really, if a person thought about it without the knee-jerk OH MY GOD? It would be informative. Oh good cow, man. Is our culture really so enamored with embalming as The Sacred Way to treat the dead? Dude, it didn’t start until the Civil War, and now it’s The Way To Go?
Anyhoo! It’s easy to pause From Here to Eternity to consider different ways of Being with the Dead, and gosh knows it’s easy to pause the audiobook for a quick chuckle or for a hearty guffaw. Doughty has an exceeedingly cockeyed way of viewing the world: It embraces even as it notes: Jeez, was not expecting THAT! -And- Really? Do those heads really have to wear beanies? She narrates this herself so we’re privy to her exact emotional reactions, her wry observations, irreverent thoughts that zip through her mind but aren’t spoken (Just cuz you think it doesn’t mean you should say it).
I can now TOTALLY see why Caitlin Doughty has so many followers: She’s funny whilst being informative. And tho’ she’s entirely secular, she’s also entirely respectful of those who might have different beliefs and customs. And when all is said and done?
She had me thinking of the best ways to honor those I love, whatever choices they may have regarding how they’d like to be treated once this Life is over. I was touched by how she’d treat her mother, and I remembered m’ own dearest Maman and how we know where her ashes will be buried (With Pappo!). It’s just that now? I KNOW: Dearest Maman: Before you’re taken away? Lipstick, yesss! Earrings, yesss!
As you’ve told Big Sis and me time and time and time again: You wouldn’t be caught dead without ‘em. We’ll honor that, we’ll apply with oh so much love, laughing about all the times we saw you sporting it all for our FaceTime chats…
MWAH!!!
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