There was a death last week, and it was me
DJs came for me, and only a corpse remains. Which got me thinking about, well, death.
Hi,
There was a death last week, and it was me.
That is if death was possible due to excessive angry DJs and DJ fans messaging me on every format known to humankind:
The messages were in response to the Webworm I’d written last week, which contained the most provocative headline I’ve ever penned, or will ever pen: ‘Are DJs worse than Covid?’
Things were made worse when Stuff republished my piece, reaching a fresh audience of DJs unaccustomed to my ways (that sometimes, just sometimes, I am having a little laugh). The headline then went viral on accounts like @bedroomdjfantasties and it all just accelerated from there.
As you may recall, the piece was about the British DJ who’d decided to forego his final day of self isolation and hit the clubs. He tested positive for Omicron shortly afterwards.
The overall point of this article was the fact the virus relies on people not following the rules in order to spread. Ergo, the host is more culpable than the virus.
However my headline (meant as a bit of a lol) was taken as a personal attack on all DJs, as was the part where I called DJs “international laptop users”.
I was rightfully slayed by a variety of DJs who pointed out that I am also a laptop user, a point I simply can’t argue with. Although if I was going to argue I’d say I occasionally do get out from behind the laptop and made documentaries and podcasts.
Some DJs took a more creative route and suggested a DJ had had sex with my girlfriend, before suggesting DJ Dimension had been “wrongfully attacked” (he wasn’t attacked, and the facts about him were correct) and that alleged widespread vaccine injuries were real (a strange tangent, but of course we’d end up there).
For the record, I don’t hold any grudge against DJs — it’s a talent I don’t have, nor will ever have. I forget sometimes that an attack on something you genuinely love can hurt. You want to defend the thing that makes you get out of bed in the morning.
Journalists are actually one of the most guilty groups at taking their job too earnestly. Hearing us talk about our jobs you’d think we’d just parasailed in and saved a dozen children from a raging house fire.
So from one laptop user to another: It’s okay. We’re okay.
This is a bit of a crude transition, but I started this piece by saying “There was a death last week, and it was me.”
I meant that in a metaphorical sense of course, but death is what I actually want to write about.
Maybe it’s been on my mind because I’ve been watching Yellowjackets — a show full of death (its also probably the best show you’ll watch this year, besides Euphoria’s second season).
Since my mid-twenties, I’ve hated the concept of dying. It may have something to do with my stepping away from a belief in an eternal afterlife — something I’d held true and close for as long as I could remember.
Mortality sunk in, and I didn’t like it much. Most of the time it’s fine: But like all of us, I run through life desperately trying to distract myself as much as possible. Any spare moment when the realisation of my eventual demise may creep in, there’s a story to chase, a film to watch, a tweet to tweet.
Sometimes it catches me by surprise: If I dare take a nap, existential dread will suddenly snap into focus, my dulled, dozy state letting the barriers down long enough for reality to hit me like a freight train (which is one of the ways I may die).
This fear creeps through into Webworm — back in April 2020 when I started this thing I was raving about Devs and what it had to say about death and the meaning of life. More recently, Hayden Donnell penned ‘How the f**k are you still alive?’ which further probed this ridiculous predicament we’re all in: That we’re all going to die and we don’t know when it’s gong to happen or what the point of any of this is.
Death is this thing we can’t avoid and I hate it. I know you might be fine with it (good for you!) — but I am not. I guess this was part of the motivation to make Dark Tourist, a show that saw me confront death in a variety of forms.
It helped a little, I think — especially in Toraja, Indonesia (take that, DJs! I put my laptop down and travelled to the jungle!) where they had a remarkably different way of treating death. Instead of hiding it away like we do the west, they confronted it head on. They live with their dead for months, sometimes years. When bodies are eventually buried, they are dug up on special occasions to pay tribute, and to give them further supplies for the afterlife: cash, cigarettes, yummy snacks.
But I guess what I learnt there (that death is okay, that we don’t need to hide it away and ignore it, but to acknowledge and be at peace with it) didn’t grip as tightly as I would have liked.
Searching “death” on my Twitter feed, I’m reminded of how often I send these morbid thoughts out into the universe, filled with more teen angst than an emo kid in the early 2000s:
Towards the end of last year I tweeted my most recent attempt to deal with my fear of death — in probably the stupidest way possible:
To try and confront my fear of death, I bought a book of photos of dead bodies — crime scenes, car crashes, drug cartel hits. it was this one Japanese photographer’s life’s work. Anyway I vomited and it made things worse.
That book was called DEATH, by porn director turned photographer Tsurisaki Kiyotaka. His photojournalism is a strange combination of daring, beautiful and disgusting.
I got a number of responses to that tweet, including people who were obviously blissfully unaware of how my brain works:
Yeah, yeah yeah — I get it. Make the most of each day. Right on. What I didn’t sign up for was the dying bit. I like being alive. I don’t want the void.
I heard from other people, too — some laughed at my attempt to confront death, others shared similar experiences: checking out extreme VHS tapes from the video store in the mid 90s.
One person was still trying to come to terms with the death of their brother. Another just really wanted someone to talk to who held the same fear they did. It had been stopping them from sleeping. One woman told me of crippling anxiety that only went away once they took a hearty dose of ayahuasca in the desert.
And then there was R, who told me her mother was a hospice nurse who cared for people as they neared death. In short, her mum Mary has been surrounded by people who are near death or dying for about 26 years.
Mary’s only recently retired — more time to spend with her love of books and politics, her friends and family (including eight grandkids). And more time to answer my annoying questions, posed to her through her daughter.
I really liked what Mary had to say.
What Mary learned after 26 years of being around dying people
Some people assume that being a hospice nurse would be a depressing career. How do you respond to that assumption?
I can see why people would make this assumption if they believe hospice nursing has its focus on depressing events — suffering, dying and death. Rather, I see hospice care as a privilege.
With an overall positive focus on wellbeing and quality of life of patients and families — as perceived by them — it is providing hope and comfort for patients to be able to live well within the confines of a life limiting illness.
Working in a team that uniquely values each patient and their family — and respects and affirms their choices, cultural and spiritual beliefs — is the opposite of depressing.
Do you think there is such a thing as a “good death”? If so, have you seen instances of good deaths in your work? What characterises them?
Yes. In summary I think a “good death” is a death where the patient and their loved ones feel supported through the dying process in the way that they have chosen. Usually it is when the patient is surrounded by the love and care of the people they care about.
It may not always be the way the providers of the care would say was optimum medically — as people can make choices that sometimes make death more difficult for doctors and nurses. For example, refusing medication which could alleviate their symptoms and suffering.
However in a good death, patients are free to make this choice. Dylan Thomas’s well known poem ‘Do not go gentle into that night’ speaks of raging against the dying of the light. Some patients and their families choose to fight until the end. Sometimes this stems from a cultural belief that a good death is inclusive of fighting death, and suffering is part of dying. At other times it is how patients choose to live until they die, fighting all the way against the disease and death itself.
In this sense it could be seen as — from a provider of care perspective — not a good death. But for those patients and their loved ones, it is how the patient has chosen to die. Therefore, in respecting the way they choose to die and honouring their wishes, it is a “good death” from the perspective that count — their choice.
So, most deaths as a hospice nurse that I have been privileged to support, I would consider “a good death”.
Dying is unique to the patient, but a good death would encompass being listened to, having their symptoms addressed, and enabling the patients to maintain their dignity through their dying in the way they have chosen.
You have had 26 something years as a hospice nurse, how has this affected your perception of death?
I now have the realisation that death is a normal process. Even if death is a result of a life limiting illness as seen in hospice care, death is still a natural occurring process at the end of a person’s life on earth.
I also have come to see although there are many similarities in the dying process itself, each death is unique in the way it is experienced by the patient and their loved ones.
My personal perception of the mystery of death has grown. While I believe that the process of death brings an end to life in a person’s physical body, I believe it is not the end of the spirit of the person. I believe that life continues in a spirit after death, but therein lies a mystery and people have different beliefs about the nature of this life after death.
Have you witnessed any experiences that could not explain, exactly?
In one hospice setting where I worked, different patients at different times who were a few days away from dying — and were not confused — would ask about the children that visited them.
The children or child would sit on a chair near them, or on the end of their bed. The children’s presence was not in any way frightening to them — in fact it was quite amazing that the patients appeared to take it all for granted! In saying that, they were curious and concerned about who the children were, and who they belonged too.
Often they would say they could hear the children playing in the hallway and asked why they were allowed to play there. The staff never saw any of the children. They knew there were no children playing in the hallways. But… patients in different rooms experienced their visits. When asked if the children made them feel anxious in any way, the answer was always a surprised “no”.
Many times when patients were at the end stage of dying they would talk with a rapt expression on their face to people unseen by their family sitting with them.
Those who were still able to talk would name the people as loved ones known to their family, but who’d died recently or even a long time ago. Often the families knew these people too, and it was very emotional.
On one occasion, I was with a man who was close to death and was being supported by his family. He was very peaceful and still aware. Suddenly, he tried to sit up and his face was a mixture of joy and amazement.
He was reaching up and calling someone’s name. The family started crying hearing the man talk to their loved one and as he continued to call out with joy.
The person he was seeing was his son who had died 22 ago in a car accident. That young man’s wife had remarried, but had remained close to family over the years, and was present in the room as part of the family as her previous father-in-law was dying.
There were many tears.
Are there any common attributes to everyone’s death experience?
Yes. In hospice care, the actual process of dying is similar to everyone’s death experience. Prior to actively dying — there are signposts that guide carers to know death is approaching.
The person sleeps more over 24 hours, they lose their appetite and drink less, they become weak and fatigued easily, they may have increased pain and become breathless and often have bladder issues.
Often the patient will feel the cold or be sensitive to heat. Some people start to become confused and are less able to engage with family. In the few days to hours before death, the person is no longer able eat or drink, people can become confused, blood pressure drops, and the body becomes cool to touch. They also become less responsive and their breathing changes.
Prior to death, people are no longer able to respond to those around them and eventually the person becomes deeply unconscious and the brain and body functions fail. Usually at this point death follows within a few hours or days, when breathing stops and their heart finally stops beating.
What would you say to somebody who is afraid of death?
New patients in particular are often afraid of dying. Often they have never experienced anyone dying, and have little understanding of what happens.
They feel vulnerable and out of control emotionally with regard to their real fear. Probably acknowledging that it is not surprising that they are afraid of death — and that many people are afraid of death — is a first place to start.
Even for those who have a faith in something after life, the process of dying itself can be particularly frightening. Often it is related to feeling a lack of control, when it seems that their life is spiralling out of control as they face their own mortality.
Dealing with suffering is one of the most frightening aspect of death for people. So most of all I would listen to their concerns, acknowledge them, and ask them if there was anything right now that would make a difference to their anxiety about death.
With people who are willing to share and face their fears, in hospice care we have the luxury of doctors, nurses and counsellors, spiritual and cultural support, and social workers who are skilled to support people facing the many dimensions of death and dying.
Just acknowledging they are fearful is a start towards a process of working through those fears.
-Mary, January 2022
The Good Death
I like what Mary had to say a lot. I’m not sure it eases my fear right now, but I’m glad to know that near the end your brain probably floods with a bunch of chemicals to make things a bit easier. To make it a good death. I welcome any dead relatives who want to turn up as ghosts. I’ll write a Webworm about it, feebly tapping away at a keyboard, probably via the fucking Metaverse.
Secretly though, I still hope to escape this fate, like Timesha Beauchamp did in 2020:
“A Michigan woman who was declared dead by paramedics on Sunday was discovered alive hours later by a funeral home worker who was preparing to embalm her body, a lawyer for her family said.”
I guess the issue is that Timesha will still end up dying one day.
In a final attempt to dampen my angst, I reached out to Caitlin Doughty. She’s a mortician I really love who’s become quite big on Instagram. Her whole thing is to put death out in the open, albeit in a less extreme way to my DEATH book.
Her Instagram is safe for work (no open skulls or body cavities) and I recommend it heartily. This is our short but sweet conversation.
Caitlin, I have an absolute fear of death, to the point where when it hits me it’s like a kick to the guts. I can’t nap anymore because if the idea sneaks up on me when I have a dozy brain, I’m panicked toast! I recently got a book of death photography but this Japanese photographer as I thought full immersion in the concept might help. It didn’t. How stupid was this move by me?
A debilitating fear of death, while not normal, is not uncommon either. Western society doesn’t have great support system for you to work through these fears, so I sympathise with your, “I guess I’ll buy a book full of corpses and hope that helps” approach.
First things first. Saying “I’m terrified of death!” is like saying “I’m terrified of life!”
What does that mean? You’re terrified of death how exactly? “Death” is a rich, vast category of fears and emotions. One of the best first steps is addressing what the fear actually is.
There’s a solid group of reasons most of us fear death. Fear of missing out, fear of leaving partners and children behind, fear of leaving life’s work unfinished, fear that dying itself will be painful, fear of heaven or hell or nothingness and the void — and fear of being a corpse!
Dig down deep into you fear and try to give it a name. If I told you you had cancer, you’d ask “ok, what kind of cancer?” The type of cancer you have determines how you treat it, right? The type of death fear you have determines how you tackle it.
Just one example: If it turns out your deepest fear is leaving your dependents behind when you die, work on that. Make sure you write and put somewhere safe long letters telling them how much you love them, make sure you’ve done your advanced directive to set them up logistically and financially, make sure you know who your children’s guardians would be and have those conversations.
I promise if you can identify the problem and take small meaningful actions the fear will start to lessen its grip on you.
You write at length about this — but if you had one concept to pass on that you have found eases the fear or existential dread, what would it be?
It’s okay to be excited about death. I don’t mean excited or looking forward to your own death — we’re not a death cult!
What I mean is that your journey to engage and face your own mortality is allowed to excite you. It’s one of the great existential challenges every — and I mean every — human faces. In the process you will learn tough things about yourself and tough things about those around you and tough things about your culture. How could you not be interested and excited by such a project?
It doesn’t have to be an entirely somber affair, ether. Learn about death rituals of other cultures, learn about changing death rituals in your own culture, read memoirs about grief, dive into historical stories.
If you’re more of a science person learn about decay and how elegantly a body decomposes into the soil. There is nothing wrong with having those questions and interests and boldly pursuing them. It’s this kind of self-inquiry that makes us self aware and makes us human.
This has been a long newsletter talking about death. I hope you’ve survived and not turned into a corpse. I feel I have a lot more self enquiry to do.
How do you feel about all this? Webworm has readers from all over the planet — a variety of ages and backgrounds. I want your take. Lay into me. I want to pick your brains. See you in the comments.
David.
PS: a weird non-death related internet thing happened this week that made me smile. Musician Emma Ruth Rundle (of The Nocturnes and Marriages) posted this photo this week.
She’s just scored her first film, Dual — which my buddy Riley Stearns made. It debuts at Sundance this month (which is virtual this year which is a huge bummer… but also safety first is very good) and stars Karen Gillan, Aaron Paul and Jesse Eisenberg.
Anyway, I made a surprise appearance in the post. And I was chuffed about it, because I love these two people.
Hi David I used to be afraid of death but as I haved aged (80 this year) the fear has decreased to almost nothing. I think we have evolved to face death more easily as we age. So just avoid those buses, fast cars, eat well and exercise more than just using your laptop and you too may get to easily facing your demise. I enjoy your newsletters immensely.
At the risk of turning your comments section into a group therapy session, here is a personal anecdote.
I found myself temporarily dead a few years back.
Something went wrong during routine surgery and my heart stopped.
There was nothing to it. I had faded out pretty quickly and felt no anxiety at any time. There was no sensory experience at all. No bright white lights, no ghosts of past family members, no choirs of angels, no feeling of warmth or cold. Just nothing. Hard to describe really.
I came back to the recovery nurse leaning over me and saying, “There you are! You gave us a scare. We thought we’d lost you for a bit”, which was somewhat disconcerting to my foggy brain.
My wife was sitting in a chair nearby, looking ashen, but relieved.
The experience has removed my fear of death, but I would still prefer to have it happen later on, thanks.
I don’t think anyone should try it just as an exercise to diminish their fear, but I found it reassuring.