Dealing With Our Dead in the 21st Century

Throughout history there seem to be three main means of dealing with and disposing of our dead: interment in a grave or tomb, cremation, and exposure to the elements and wildlife.

As technology has progressed during the 20th and 21st centuries, mankind has devised a whole host of alternative ways to dispose of the dead, ranging from the environmentally friendly to the bizarre. But our dead are not always 'disposed of' as such - in this day and age we have found some interesting ways to mark our departed loved ones' lives. And in some cases, they are not even considered dead when they are legally dead...

Over the next few posts we'll explore some of the ways we treat deal with mortal remains in the 21st century, starting with Cremation Diamonds.

Cremation Diamonds

If you want to keep your deceased loved one with you at all times, there are a number of companies that will transform cremation ashes into a diamond you can wear or carry around.

Carbon derived from the cremation ashes is purified and, in a manner emulating the production of natural diamonds, subjected to immense heat and pressure over a period of time, from a few weeks to a few months. The resulting diamond is then cut and polished and can be set in jewellery.

Far from this being the limit, one can have diamonds made from hair and nail cuttings of a living person in the same way, or even the fur from a pet.

Get used to dying
before death arrives,
for the dead can only live
and the living can only die.

- Old Mexican refrain.

Dying in the Modern World

We are born surrounded by machines; we die surrounded by machines. Where once we were surrounded by family and underwent important rites of passage at these two most significant stages in our lives, in the modern world we often are born and die in cold, unfeeling sterility.

Medical science has done much to keep death and disease at bay, prolonging our lives, but in our search to defy death it seems we are distancing ourselves from our humanity.

When a person dies in a familiar environment surrounded by loved ones, there is the opportunity for a period of adjustment and realisation of what is happening, of the process of dying. When one dies surrounded by doctors - strangers - and machines, the body sometimes being bullied into retaining life, this must surely be more traumatic for the person dying, and for the family.  The situation and the people are unfamiliar, unconnected to the person who is dying.

As modern medical science has advanced, so we have become more removed from the family and important rites of passage during the most important transitional periods of our lives.

The King's Fund, which  seeks to understand how the health system in England can be improved, quotes an NHS Confederation survey which suggests that 56 % of terminally ill people would prefer to die at home, but only 18% achieve this, with 58% dying in hospitals, 17% in care homes and 4 percent in hospices.

This is a highly significant finding which demonstrates our society’s fundamental inability to manage how we die and to allow people to die as they choose.

According to findings quoted by The King’s Fund:

‘The pattern of death in the UK has changed dramatically in the past 100 years. At the end of the 19th century 85 per cent of people died at home, the majority from acute infections. Today 58 per cent of the 500,000 deaths each year occur in hospital, mainly from chronic long-term conditions. Long-term projections by Gomes and Higginson suggest that if current trends continue unchecked, fewer than one in 10 people will die at home by 2030 while deaths in institutions will rise by over 20 per cent.’[1]

What this means for the number of people wishing to die at home, is that whilst medical care is progressing, we as humans are being given less choice in how we live and how we die.  If we are subjected to dying in a situation that we do not choose or want, then our death is not likely to be a happy or comfortable one.

There are of course a great many people and organisations dedicated to caring for the dying and fighting for our rights to die how we will; amongst these are such organisations as Dignity in Dying.  Like all aspects of death, the subject of dying is international, political and often controversial.  We will examine this in greater depth  in the future.

Fundamentally, our rights in the important rite of passage of death have to a great degree been taken from us.

Our choices of what happens to our body when we die, however, are increasingly expanding, and next we will be looking at some of the more inventive ways people are finding to deal with our mortal remains.
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[1] The Kings Fund. (2011). End-of-life care. Available at http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/topics/endoflife_care/.  Accessed 20.03.12