Celebrating death..

Nuff death these last few weeks and then today the bookclub talked about Anthony Winkler's The Duppy and The Fortean Times book of Strange Deaths.
With all the wonderful literature around, how does the book club end 2009 on the subjects, of death dying and duppies.. well it was our comedy month, the light month and well , yep the suggested books were these two.. about death so yes, the book club members are laughing at death..

The Duppy is funny in the beginning, Taddeus Augustus Baps gets a heart attack, turns into a duppy and has to join a minibus to get to heaven.. a journey he not prepared for.. book gets boring towards the end. Strange Deaths chronicles reports of , yep, strange deaths from newspaper clippings around the world..
Can we choose how we die? Some of us pondered if we could , can we die in a weird and wonderful way.. memorable, not a boring heart attack or of some incurable disease. Two doctors apparently died of viagra overdoses.. well that might have been a stupid way to die, but one man's noblility is another man's stupidity - or one man's erection is another man's downfall?

I have been thinking.. a heart attack while having sex seems wonderful, but then what about a sugar induced stroke after a long orgy of different kinds of chocolate and ice cream of all flavours? People want their deaths to be painless, quick.. not like the lives we sometimes lead.. those of us who have contemplated suicide have wished for the end of that pain.


Death was on my mind as I went to a wake house to sing with the Ramayana gole. The Hare Krsna preacher reminded the people of the Hindu view of death as part of the process, and told the story of the man who tried to resist the transition of the soul, either back to the Supreme Being, or into another life form.  In the car on the way to the wake house, the talk was about health, dying and death as well. The man driving, devoted Hindu and family man, intelligent .. tried to convince me that gay and lesbian people are destructive for society and started to quote scripture (I could quote back scripture too). He wished gay and lesbian people would kill themselves, easier to rid the society of them  he said.. it was scary being close to such hatred and after laughing at death earlier in the day.. i wondered if confronted with a man who would want people dead and go to lengths to kill and stone like the mobs and the States who do.. would i laugh?  Could I risk death to my driver friend by saying hey.. what if I am the gay /lesbian person you hate so much? Would you want help me select the way to kill myself?

Is wanting people dead the same as killing them?


I know I have wished some people dead sometimes, but not recently.  Even as my friend in the car ranted and raved like those, I did not wish him dead... well he was driving as well so not practical and we were on the west bank and had a wake to go to.. and my book club members , i could imagine them saying.. man dies in car accident after wishing driver dead on the way to a wake after reading book about strange deaths..


The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying is a great manual for how to live and die well.  There are no manuals on how to mourn, or to grieve or to cope with loss. Hindus talk about detachment. Fear of death tends to be fear of loss. Death is one of those things that we have to embrace, because unlike some things like money, love, sex on the seawall in the daylight, President Jagdeo getting a fourth term, .. death is the one thing we know for sure will happen.