Learning How to Die, Doll Version

NOTE: These are just smatterings of thoughts on the subject of dying well.

Every so often I mention that I'm interested in the question of how to die well.
I don't mean medically, biologically (though I want pain management!), but... hmmm... 
how do we die, grace-fully?

Whenever I say "we", I know I am avoiding something.

Of course I can learn from how you and other people do something, but I'm skirting the key question:
how might I die "well"? And what does "dying well" even mean?

The person I know who died most gracefully was my friend Bruce, who died of AIDS when we were both in our late twenties. He pulled it off beautifully, even though he'd had little chance to practice getting comfortable with loss and pain in his short life.

So it's not just a matter of practice. 
Still, since I've lived long enough to have the chance, why not practice?
What would that practice consist of?

I. Dolls Do It

My friend Jen who lives and teaches in Japan told me about the Shinto ceremony for saying thank-you and good-bye to your old dolls. 
She told me because we were talking about my Orphan Reds, and she said in Japan it's normal to see that every thing has spirit.

The ceremony like a group die-off for dolls. The dolls are thanked, and their spirits are released so their bodies can be disposed of. 
(I saw a photo of the dolls being burned at the shrine. Not sure if they do that with modern plastic dolls though--so toxic.)

The annual event is run by Ningyo ni Kanshasuru Kai (人形に感謝する会),
the Association to Express Thanks to Dolls. 

I love this so much!

Do you remember a woman donated her old doll and bear to me at the thrift store, with tears in her eyes? I think I handled it well, but I wish now I'd gotten her contact info so I could show her when I finishe restoring her bear. (He's had his spa treatment but is still waiting for new stuffing.)

Photo & info via "Express Gratitude to Your Beloved Dolls at This Unique Festival at Meiji Shrine"

II. We Do It

Wandering around this morning, I came across this 4-min. trailer for a movie Griefwalker, about a man, Stephen Jenkinson, who helps people die.

(I noticed it because it's on Jenkinson's site, the name of which caught me: Orphan Wisdom.)

 

III. The Culture Is Doing It

Cultures die. Is ours actively in its death throes?
Feels like it.

 

In 2013 Roy Scranton wrote this piece about living and dying in the era of climate collapse--the end of the Industrial Revolution: "Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene"

"“If we want to learn to live in the Anthropocene, we must first learn how to die.
The biggest problem climate change poses isn’t how the Department of Defense should plan for resource wars, or how we should put up sea walls to protect Alphabet City, or when we should evacuate Hoboken.
It won’t be addressed by buying a Prius, signing a treaty, or turning off the air-conditioning. The biggest problem we face is a philosophical one: understanding that this civilization is already dead. 

The biggest problems the Anthropocene poses are precisely those that have always been at the root of humanistic and philosophical questioning:
“What does it mean to be human?” and “What does it mean to live?”

In the epoch of the Anthropocene, the question of individual mortality — “What does my life mean in the face of death?” — is universalized and framed in scales that boggle the imagination. What does human existence mean against 100,000 years of climate change? What does one life mean in the face of species death or the collapse of global civilization?
How do we make meaningful choices in the shadow of our inevitable end?"
____________________________

Documentary filmmaker Ian Mack wrote a sort of companion article goes with this one:
"Learning How to Live in the Anthropocene: Ecstasy and grief at the end of an era."

He writes:

"I submit the real challenge is, and has always been, remembering how to live.

"Here are the questions I ask myself today:
Can I acknowledge that which the culture gave me and grieve that which it did not? Can I bear witness to her ending, even if she grips and claws her way down, terror stark upon her face? 
And can I plant the seeds of sanity, however that may look to me, as I work for a day the rest of us will never see?"

Ends are beginnings too.

Today I posted this on the SVDP Facebook, from 
Bl. Frederic Ozanam (1813-1853), founder of the Society of SVDP:

“Do not be afraid of new beginnings. Be creative. Be inventive. You who have energy; who have enthusiasm; who want to do something of value for the future; Be inventive, launch out; Do not wait!”

And now, off I go to work!