You Hate Funerals. Go Anyway

<h2>“I love funerals!” said no one ever</h2> I doubt even morticians say that. At least, not out loud. For the rest of us, there is no “fun” in funerals. That holds true even when they’re called something else, like “memorial” or “celebration of life.” However they’re presented, they always mean the same thing: somebody died. And that, in almost every case, is a bummer. Also, it makes us very, very uncomfortable, because death. Mortality. The big finish that’s coming for all of us, someday, somehow. The wall we can’t see over; the horizon we can’t see past. <a href="https://www.bartleby.com/lit-hub/hc/hamlet/act-iii-33/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Hamlet’s</a> undiscovered country. Knowing that someone we know, however distantly, has died reminds us that our turn is coming, and that gives us the heebie-jeebies. <h2>There are cultures that are more comfortable with death</h2> At least, they seem more accepting of it. India has an entire city, <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel/2019/01/india-life-and-death-in-varanasi#:~:text=Varanasi%20is%20the%20city%20where,human%20being%20is%20entrapped%20in." rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Varanasi</a>, that Hindus traditionally regard as the place to be when it’s time to die. Some devotees seek to spend their final days meditating there on the shores of the Ganges — a far more emphatic embrace of the inevitable than an <a href="https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000472.htm" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">advance care directive</a> or a DNR (<a href="https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000473.htm#:~:text=A%20do%2Dnot%2Dresuscitate%20order,the%20patient's%20heart%20stops%20beating." rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Do Not Resucitate</a>) order, which is about as far as a lot of Westerners get. <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/author/francesca-mills" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Francesca Mills</a> observes in her 2018 <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel/2019/01/india-life-and-death-in-varanasi#:~:text=Varanasi%20is%20the%20city%20where,human%20being%20is%20entrapped%20in." rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">National Geographic</a> piece about Varanasi, where life goes on in the presence of the dead: <blockquote> Here, death isn’t something to be hidden. Rather, it’s a part of the fabric of everyday life. About 80 cremations take place every day along the banks of the Ganges. At sunrise, boatmen offer rides across the dark water, from where you can watch distant fires slowly light up. </blockquote> <a href="https://medium.com/crows-feet/you-hate-funerals-go-anyway-bddf2d1797">Website</a>