T H E
A
M E R
W A Y
I C A
N
O F
DE AT H
A MEDITATION ON DYING, GRIEF AND
THE BODIES WE LEAVE BEHIND
by Will Kennedy
bout four years ago, my stepdad
walked down a garden path in the
backyard of the house he shared with
my mother. It was springtime. He
locked himself in a small cottage at
the back of the yard, neatly arranged a
sealed envelope on his desk, and took off his glasses. My
stepfather then sat down on a futon, stuck a pistol in his
mouth and shot himself.
I haven’t had much death in my life but, by some cruel
twist of fate, most of the death I’ve experienced has come
from suicide. A young friend took pills and suffocated
himself, another friend jumped in the Columbia River, and
then there’s my stepdad and the pistol.
If you’ve been through a suicide, it’s a peculiar kind of
grief. Simply waking up in the morning enters us into an
unspoken contract with every other living thing on the planet.
This contract states: Life, which nobody asks for, is
often unbearable. But just keep living, not just for your-
self, but for us. The alternative is not an option.
When someone breaks that contract, it sends those left
behind into a spiritual free fall. The rules have changed. That
contract entered upon unwittingly at birth is suddenly null and
void. The architecture of your will to live must be rebuilt.
Copycat suicides are common, and I believe this is why.
Jeff Musgrove of Musgrove Family Mortuary says that,
in the Western world, we tend to view death as unnatural
— as “something weird,” he says. Musgrove Family Mor-
tuary has been in business since 1888, making it one of the
oldest continuously operating businesses in Lane County.
Musgrove looks at the mortuary business as part of the
health care industry, or, as he calls it, “the caring profes-
sion.” At one time, families cared for their own dead, bury-
ing them in pine and cedar boxes.
After the Civil War, with the preponderance of death,
funeral rituals became more elaborate, and in many ways
the mortuary business was born.
Musgrove says that in his time he’s seen funeral ser-
vices change dramatically. “Back in the late ’70s and
’80s,” he says, “a lot of the services were still religiously
oriented. That kind of turned people off; the funerals were
kind of cookie cutter. That left people saying, ‘If that’s it,
then count me out.’”
The trend brought about a pendulum swing toward no
service at all, Musgrove says. “That was not the answer,”
he adds. “The pendulum has swung back to, we’re going
to have a service, but it’s going to be much more focused
on the person: what their life was.”
SIMPLY WAKING UP IN THE MORNING
ENTERS US INTO AN UNSPOKEN CONTRACT
WITH EVERY OTHER LIVING THING
ON THE PLANET.
THIS CONTRACT STATES: LIFE, WHICH
NOBODY ASKS FOR, IS OFTEN
UNBEARABLE. BUT JUST KEEP LIVING,
NOT JUST FOR YOURSELF, BUT FOR US.
THE ALTERNATIVE IS NOT AN OPTION.
WHEN SOMEONE BREAKS THAT
CONTRACT, IT SENDS THOSE LEFT
BEHIND INTO A SPIRITUAL FREE FALL.
As far as dealing with the bag of bones we all leave
behind, cremations are on the rise. You can have your
ashes pressed into a vinyl LP; some services will compost
you. In Crestone, Colorado, you can be burned on an open-
air pyre.
Later, on the evening my stepdad killed himself, a
cleanup crew came to my mother’s house. A well-meaning
woman did all the talking while some surly men in the
background smoked cigarettes. They cut out the portion of
drywall in the cottage damaged by bullet holes, and they
removed carpet stained with blood and brains.
The car they arrived in said, “It’s like it never hap-
pened.”
A few days later I sat at the mortuary with my mom. A
kind, gray-faced man with long fingers adorned with fancy
rings asked if I’d like to see my stepfather’s body. He’d
endured quite a bit of trauma, the man said, so some things
would have to be “disguised.”
I said no. I buckled. I chickened out. I folded. I, too, am
weird about death.
My mother asked, “Are you sure? I understand seeing
the body can really help with closure.”
I couldn’t do it. But now, four years later, I often think
about that moment.
I ask Musgrove if I made a mistake. “It’s a personal
decision,” he says. “I can’t say having a visitation or view-
ing is right in every circumstance.”
In cases of sudden or unanticipated death, he adds,
people tend to say “no” to viewing bodies. People want to
“deny it,” Musgrove explains. “It can’t be. There’s some
mistake. All of these games we play in our mind.”
But he says there can be a lot of value in visiting the
body of a loved one, calling it the first step in the journey
toward recovery. “Because you can’t start the grieving pro-
cess if you refuse to admit there’s something to be grieving
about,” Musgrove says. “If you can see them and they’re in
peace, they’re not struggling anymore. To see them and say,
‘Yes, they really did die,’ can have huge benefits.”
We cremated my stepfather. There was a small memo-
rial service. Nobody talked about how he died. A red gob-
lin of anger inside me wanted to march up to everyone and
say, “You know he killed himself, don’t you.” But I didn’t.
In a spiral of confusion and grief, my family never did
anything with the ashes. Maybe someday we will. ■
THE COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS AND THE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND COMMUNICATION PRESENT
BOB DYLAN:
PHOTOGRAPHS
BY DANIEL KRAMER
AN EVENING WITH
DANIEL KRAMER
Curated by the
GRAMMY Museum ®
WEDNESDAY
NOV. 1, 7 P.M.
OCT. 26 – NOV. 30
Fairbanks Gallery
First Floor, Fairbanks Hall
220 SW 26th Street, Corvallis
Hosted by Bob Santelli
Learning Innovation Center Room 128
165 SW Sackett Place, Corvallis
liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/daniel-kramer
eugeneweekly.com • October 26, 2017
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