Taylor Berzins
Taylor is a fourth year print journalism student at Laurier Brantford, who has decided to culminate her studies in this final project about the culture of death and dying in Canada. Currently working as the Manager of Operations at Student Publications and interim Editor-in-Chief of The Sputnik, Taylor is also a co-founder of Advocates for a Student Culture of Consent. Taylor's future endeavours include running a blog while travelling the nation for the summer of 2016 and pursuing graduate studies.
My Dying Wishes 1
October, 2015
So I finally took some time and thought about how I’d like my funeral to go today. It felt very weird!
I’ve thought about things like this a bit before, but not in a serious way. For example, when I was in high school an old friend of mine and I made a pact that we would sing, “Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady,” at the funeral of whoever died first (totally inspired by the scene in Garden State). But, truthfully, I’ve never thought about my funeral in a serious capacity.
We were originally going to base our dying wishes around the Good End of Life worksheet, but it didn’t really work to upload (you can find the worksheet here:
The sheet got me thinking a lot about resuscitation. I definitely do not want to be resuscitated, or kept on life support. I’d also like to participate in the right to die if I was dying in a prolonged and physically painful way, or in a way that left me without my mind. It’s kind of hard to think about these things, and it’s also hard to consider the fact that some people don’t plan for their deaths at all and are maybe left without their wishes tended to.
The Highlights:
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I want to be cremated, and put into a “scatter” urn that people can draw on
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DNR! (do not resuscitate)
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I want a wake type celebration, no funeral home!
Death Blog 1
October 27, 2015
I have been to a single funeral.
I have never lost a close family member or friend.
I have never seen a dead body.
I feel kind of insecure delving into this project about death and dying without any life experience regarding death, how will I relate to our sources?
My understanding of death and dying has been fed to me through the media, and because of my interests in the odd and my dark sense of humor I’ve always gravitated towards the macabre. Wednesday Addams was my girlhood idol, I’ve loved zombie films for as long as I can remember, Shakespearean tragedies have always inspired me and Harold and Maude is my favorite love story. I’ve always been curious and fascinated by death.
My understanding of death and dying has also been influenced by media's portrayl of tragedy. Being a journalist and interested in news, newspapers and newscasts have been a major part of my self-development. I’ve always had my nose in the news. Being informed about tragedy has kept me open to understanding what cruel place the world can be, but has also sensationalized my understanding of death. The portrayal of death in the news isn’t intimate; rather it’s always dramatic. Mass death, war, celebrity death, homicide; these narratives of death and dying are so grand and rousing I feel like it’s really skewed my understanding of mortality. Everybody dies and they don’t always die in a loud way that is grounds for headlines. I don’t really know much about quiet, intimate death. I don’t know about grieving and the people who were behind the scenes of the headlines, or the long-term effects of loss.
When I was 14, my great-uncle Henry died. I had only met him once when I was a very small child and could recall him smelling like mothballs and wearing red suspenders. He had disappeared from my memory until my father asked me to come with him to Henry’s apartment to clean out his possessions from the space after Henry had died. My father was Henry's only living and physically capable relative.
The apartment was a co-op space for seniors, hours away from my home in Brantford. Henry had lived alone in his apartment and it was apparent that he seldom had any visitors.
There was a stain in the center of the living room carpet, the woman who had opened the apartment for us explained that they had tried to clean the stain, but to no avail, they’d be ripping up the carpet in the coming days. She explained that the stain had formed when Henry died. They had found his rotting remains in the middle of the living room, curled up in the fetal position, his body beginning to decompose; the stain was from his body fluids. They found him because of the smell.
Henry had died, alone, in the middle of his living room, curled up in the fetal position and nobody knew until the smell set in.
I don't think I'll ever forget the smell, or the image of that stain.
It was devastating to imagine such a lonesome life. It was devastating to imagine such a lonesome death.
Despite my world of the slasher films, newscasts and bitter post-punk music, Henry was my first (and only) real world experience with death.
Rummaging through Henry's few worldly possessions and we scrubbed his memory out the apartment that afternoon, I found a box of old Polaroid cameras, a book about bird watching and a few photographs. This told me Henry had liked to watch the birds, the moon, and the sunset; in his solitary life Henry had found joy in observing nature. It was nice to imagine him finding peace in his place in the world; it helped me to imagine that perhaps he wasn’t always lonely.
I’m nervous about this project. I am afraid to talk about death in a way that is real, because I am afraid that it will tease out my own fears about dying.
Since I was young, I’ve always imagined funerals as an event brimming with people and an overwhelming amount of love. I am scared to hear more stories like Henry’s, stories that remind me that some people do die alone. Stories that remind me that death isn’t just newsworth, quirky and strange, but death is real and in a lot of ways, death is intimate and lonesome.
I was motivated to pick the topic of death and dying after hearing about Undertaking L.A., a radical group of funeral directors who are working to normalize death in American culture. Their fearless leader, Caitlin Doughty, a YouTube vlog called “Ask a Mortician,” and the site The Order of Good Death. Doughty is working to revolutionize the way people understand dying, and negotiate peoples’ access to affordable funerals.
I was wondering if these kinds of things are happening in Canada too? So here we are, spending the next few months looking to explore death culture in Canada. Is our understanding of death and dying as broken as our neighbours to the south? Are there radical agents working to change the Canadian understanding of death?
I’m really excited to find out.
Me as Wednesday Addams, 2012
Henry's photos: found while clearning out his apartment
Death Blog 2
October 30, 2015
And when you are asked this question next, say “A grave-maker.” The houses that he makes last till doomsday.
Hamlet - V.i., 53-55
It was pretty weird meeting with a gravedigger the night before Halloween, there was something just so fitting about the whole ordeal.
I first met Kevin while I was a server at a Chinese food restaurant; he was a friend of the owners and around quite a bit.
I remember being surprised when my boss told me that Kevin was a gravedigger. In my mind I had always imagined a gravedigger to be a person reminiscent of Argus Filch from Harry Potter, or like the Crypt Keeper.
Kevin was middle aged, an avid bowler and a punk rock fan. Kevin had always conveyed vibes that reminded me of The Dude (from The Big Lebowski), and in turn never really met my expectations of how a gravedigger would be.
Meeting with Kevin to discuss his profession at Coffee Culture was riveting. He's been working at Brantford's public cemetaries for well over a decade. Hearing stories about the odd vessels in which people are buried and the informalities of some modern funerals was something I’d never really imagined I’d be discussing over a cup of coffee.
Thanks to our interview with Kevin, I’m extremely interested in exploring the use of cemeteries as a common space. Listening to Kevin explain the detailed work that goes into maintaining the grounds, I just don’t understand why the city wouldn’t be working harder to make these spaces more accessible as parks? Perhaps it’s our society’s death-phobic nature that prevents us from hanging out in cemeteries, but with the impacts of urban sprawl and the reduction of accessible public green space, it only makes sense to use these grounds in new ways. Wouldn’t it be lovely to see a swing set and bike paths added into cemeteries? Or yoga and picnic lunches in such a space?
I was troubled to hear about the organization of cemeteries and how plots are all based on economic hierarchies. The more pretty and accessible a plot’s site, the more expensive, the less accessible and aesthetically pleasing the site, the less expensive. It’s gross that a structure, like economic status, that impedes so many lives continues to play into ones death. Doris Francis writes in the article Cemeteries as Cultural Landscapes that, “the social and status structures which organize the living community are reflected and expressed in the forms and arrangement of the cemetery’s cultural landscape.”
I don’t know how to approach a solution to any of these problems. Having a massive chunk of land existing as a space to memorialize our dead in which people are too creeped out to use it as park space is problematic, but to have that space organized in a classist structure makes my skin crawl.
Kevin has seen it all. The disinterring of bodies, bummer funerals, family spats, and the time management challenges of working in a city that digs graves even when thick frost has set in.
I’m glad my preconceived notions of grave digging have been rectified, and I’m glad I have something to mull over when it comes to imagining the ways in which we use our public space. It’s high time we revolutionize the way we design and think about the usefulness of cemeteries!
Filch and the Crypt Keeper
Death Blog 3
February 3, 2016
Today I got to thinking about how I learned about loss given the fact my parents were such babies about the topic.
Bambi’s Mom : Bambi, 1942
Dumbo’s Mom: Dumbo 1941
LittleFoot’s Mom: The Land Before TIme, 1988
Mufasa: The Lion KIng, 1994
9/11, 2001
Talking to Michele and Emily, it really resonated with me that we should be teaching kids about death, the same way we teach them about sex (and hopefully we can do better on both fronts!). I think that by learning about death and dying through media, it makes death seem a lot more terrifying. I can remember begging my mother not to die after watching the scene with Littlefoot and his mother. When you don't see death as natural, rather only as something very sad, scary and hyperreal, it can be too intimidating to accept.
What is wrong with explaining the processes of decomposition, or the human lifecycle when we spend time teaching them about the hatching cycle of chicks, phases of a butterfly, and the growth cycle of a plant? Death is an inevitable part of life, and there's got to be a better way to learn about your morality than through cartoons and narratives of grand scale tragedy and terror.
Image by"jackie"via flickr CC
Death Blog 4
Death is everywhere!
Today we started serving a beer at work from Bellwood’s Brewery called, “Bring Out Your Dead.”
It’s interesting to see how marketable skulls, zombies and the macabre can be. I know I’m a sucker for things that are spooky. But learning about death in a more real context, I’m starting to break down that wall of “spooky,” death isn’t really scary anymore.
I think what’s scary is the idea that my loved ones wouldn’t be afforded a way to heal if I died. If I had no plans, had never discussed my death with my loved ones and then my end came in abrupt fashion, they would be ruined. It’s so important that we talk about death as a community and articulate our needs in regards to death. Much like birth. I remember the first time I told my partner that I wasn’t opposed to home birth and would seek out a doula whenever the time comes for me to reproduce. Sure, he thought it was weird, but I knew it was an important conversation to have. It was a pretty similar response when I told my parents I want a home funeral. They were grossed out, but it was good to talk about it.
Cheryl Moore from the local hospice showed us this video, and I think that it has scared me more than anything else we've explored in this project:
I think that people really need to make informed decisions about dying in order to have control and autonomy over their lives. If you don’t want to be resuscitated or to die in the hospital, you don’t have to. You can make clear statements about where to draw the line.
Death Blog 5
March 30, 2016
Good god. It happened today- I saw my first dead body.
I figured it would happen, I did not imagine that there would be a way I could spent a school year immersed in death and go unscathed.
Honestly though, I’m extremely happy it happened. It was like the final piece of the puzzle, it made this all real.
I was glad that the body I saw belonged to an old person. They were peaceful, and absolutely nothing like what you see on TV.
Walking through the palliative care ward there were butterflies everywhere. I asked Chris, the nurse I was interviewing, if the butterfly was a universal theme for death, because the hospice also uses butterflies. Chris said that it was fluke.
I think my brain was nervous, or trying to exert some kind of dark humour in order to keep me moving through the interview, but the song “Butterfly” by Crazytown was stuck in my head for majority of the interview... Gross.
Death Blog 6
April 12, 2016
As we wind down with this project, I’ve been sharing a lot of information with my friends and family. Being keen on intersectional feminism, as I chatted about our project, I started to become aware of the fact that an alarming majority of our sources are white.
It’s hard to say that our project conveys an accurate depiction of how death culture is changing in Canada if the only voice we’re conveying is a white voice.
There are so many correlations between how we validate people in life and their access to good deaths.
So, it sucks that we didn’t include voices of people of colour advocating to revolutionize death culture.
My mind reeling, I began perusing the website that led me to this topic in the first place, The Order of Good Death. Doing a ctr+f search for themes related to race and death, I couldn’t find any listed experts.
A few weeks ago I went to Black Live Matter TO’s “tent city” at the Toronto Police headquarters to stand as an ally. It’s so challenging to see that people are still fighting to negotiate the validity of their lives within society. Black Lives Matter-Toronto’s Facebook page explains, “"Rooted in the experiences of Black people in this country who actively resist our de-humanization, #BlackLivesMatter is a call to action and a response to the virulent anti-Black racism that permeates our society." We adopt this language because to us, the need to acknowledge black lives is global. State-sanctioned violence against black lives is a global phenomenon. Anti-blackness is a global phenomenon. Pervasive anti-black racism is a global phenomenon.”
When our homepage articulates that Canadians want to die differently, I think that it’s vital that we talk about issues affecting people and their access to “good” death.
In the USA, there’s a mortician named Tyrone Muhammad who organized a collective called Morticians Who Care, and is working to call out cultures of violence that are affecting black youth in America. In an interview with Order of Good Death, Muhammad explained, “We can’t just look at death as death- it’s very profitable all the way around because a lot of people are profiting from the deaths of young black men. And it’s tragic that we have a lot of people that have a voice on national scale that could try to bring a dialogue to this but they’re doing nothing. We need the black funeral directors, black morticians to take effect on it. So I mean, we can’t expect the white community, we can’t expect other communities, to speak out on this. They should, but it’s our obligation to speak out on it as black people.”
(Find the rest of the interview here: http://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/real-american-death-hero-tyrone-muhammad#.VxJuyBIrKRt)
When demographics are dying violent deaths at disproportionate rates, there is no doubt that we need to talk about how these people are advocating to die differently. After engaging in this project, I have learned that having the ability to plan and meditate upon the terms in which one dies a good death is a fundamental right. People should not be afraid of death, and people should especially not be afraid of dying within the tragic parameters of violence. This just reiterates the idea that our society is not functioning in a way that supports all people.
I started to think about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, and the suicide crises afflicting first nations’ communities in Canada; the mass deaths of indigenous youths via suicide.
There is an access problem when it comes to being able to have a “good” death, and if we’re going to talk about changing death culture, we can’t ignore these issues.
Good death, or dying wise, is the idea that you have had the opportunity to plan your death. Would you like to be resuscitated? Do you want to die in the hospital or at home? Will you be buried or cremated? Where would you like your funeral to be held? What will be in your obituary? Who will negotiate your finances and implement your plans?
We’ve discussed the beautiful changes that are occurring in the culture of death and moving access to death and dying plans into the hands of the individual and out of the hands of institutions. We’ve learned about the power in understanding your roots and implementing ritual into how you die. We’ve explored the powerful connections between birth and death. But not everyone can access this. There are bodies that exist within the structures of Canada that are not even validated in life. Our cemeteries even reflect these structures, forcing social status to burden some insofar as their deaths and burial rights.
I also got to thinking about my LGBTQ identified friends and the limitations that can be exacted upon them in death. For instance, if their power of attorney decides that they don't want to include their partner in planning due to personal beliefs, they could die without seeing loved ones that are integral to who they are in life. Futhermore some trans identifed people die and their families do not use their preferred names or pronounces. Of course, there's also complexities associated to funerals, seeing as its a tradition that is embedded in religious structures. I've heard stories about clergy people refusing to perform LGTBQ funerals, or preparing scathing eulogies. It's really horrible to think about!
Before we can say that Canadians are dying differently, it's vital to acknowledge that we’ve got a lot of work to do.
Death Blog 7
April 14, 2016
I am terrible for communicating with my friends, on platforms like Slack, Facebook and text, with Emojis and GIFs.
I went to text my partner yesterday, and wanted to tell him I was working on my “death project,” but I did not want to use my words, I wanted to use a funny GIF.
Mining through the GIF source Giphy, I was reminded about how are culture thinks and talks about death.
To be frank, the death themed Emojis kind of suck too. They’re just so gloomy!
In terms of GIFs, rather than seeing images of floral wreaths, gravesites, and funeral scenes from movies, when searching for “death” through Giphy, a collection of eerie, repeating images presented themselves to me.
Although they weren’t all awful, for example there was a GIF of a decomposing body from Chet Faker’s “Talk is Cheap” music video, most of the images were of the grim reaper.
According to Wikipedia (the most formal of sources…) in some cultures the Grim Reaper brings death and in turn, “people in some stories try to hold on to life by avoiding Death's visit, or by fending Death off with bribery or tricks.”
Others believe that the Grim Reaper is a “psychopomp,” which is a word used to describe forces that are believed to guide the dying to the other side.
The idea of psychopomps has bothered me throughout this project.
I am a skeptic, although I am open to some facets of spirituality, for the most part I consider myself to be agnostic. The idea of heaven and hell have never made sense to me, and in turn I’d never given any consideration the life after death or the existence of some kind of great-beyond.
When talking to Pierce Brown about the language they use in funeral homes, he explained that they say terms like “passed on” to describe the bodies in their care rather than “dead,” explaining that passed on sounds more formal.
To me, “passed on” has just always seemed so loaded with implications. Passed on to what?
Three of our sources have described detailed experiences with pyschopomps. And we’re talking about science led, health service workers, not our religious sources.
Every account has made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
The stories have surrounded dead family members or angelic ghosts coaching the dying from one side to the next, and it has been explained to us that this is a common phenomena, to see the dying carry on robust conversations with their dead before passing themselves.
Psychopomps aren’t the scary hooded figure reflected in GIFs, but according to GIFs said figure is our dominant digital imagery in which we convey feelings about death to each other.
My Dying Wishes 2
April 16, 2016
It’s time to review my dying wishes. This project has certainly changed my mind in a lot of ways.
Firstly, I do not want to die in a hospital. I wouldn’t really like to die in a hospice either, but I mean if I’m dying and my house is a busy space or I’d be a financial burden on my family, let me die in a hospice.
I don’t want tubes. If I’m dying, mitigate the pain, but don’t hook me up to anything. I want to die naturally. No heart monitors, no hospital bed. I want to die in my own bed without the burden of expenses related to having to cart in all kinds of medical equipment into my home.
Do not resuscitate. If I’m dead, or on my way out, don’t you dare revive me!
Furthermore, if I were near death and struggling, I’d rather just not eat than participate in assisted dying. I had a friend recently explain her fears surrounding assisted dying to me, and I realized that those were my fears too. When one tries a new food, activity or even medication or drug, they can Google reviews of that thing to understand what their experience will be like. Will it hurt? How will I feel? Is it good? But, with assisted dying, there is no context in which to understand what it would feel like, and no guarantee for painlessness because no one survives to talk about it. I’ve also heard too many stories about “a foot in each world” to want to rob myself of that experience. If I can die naturally and am not struck down by an accident or act of violence, then I want to navigate two realities. I don’t think that happens for people who take control over their own moment of dying.
I will not be embalmed.
I want a home funeral and a natural burial. If it becomes legal within my lifetime to bury someone in their own yard, I’d like that, otherwise a green burial site like the one Mia visited will do. Regardless, put me in the mushroom suite!
Since I’m opting for a home funeral, everyone I love should touch my dead body. Yes, legally, only my immediate family and a funeral director is allowed to touch my corpse, but from what we’ve learned there is power in touching your dead; it has been proven to help with the grieving process, so I’d like to give my close friends and family the opportunity to do that.
I’d encourage my family to rent a hearse to transport my body. As neat as it is that one can bring their dead in their own vehicle, I think my family would be uncomfortable with that, in turn, transportation will need to be arranged.
I’d want a CD made for my funeral procession, so that everyone could be listening to the same things on the way to the burial site. I’d want to prerecord some of my own voice and have some of my favorite songs included on the mix.
I want my funeral to be void of any religious ceremony. No Psalms, no prayers, no hymns, no minister. Loved ones can say words if they’re inclined, but that’s the extent of it.
I would not like a tombstone, rather a plaque on the earth that says my name, date of birth and death, and has enough space on it for people to kiss it like de Beauvoir and Sartre’s grave (because that’s adorable).
After my graveside funeral, I’d like to still have a wake at a bar, exactly like I’d articulated in my original funeral plan that I’d made in October:
“I think it would be cool to have a band play, but if that’s not feasible, I would love to have some of my favorite songs shared. I would also like a photo slideshow to be played, and to have entries from my childhood diary read aloud because I have always really loved the Mortified movement and would like to share those horribly awkward life moments with everyone.
I would also encourage my friends and family to read poetry, and create art during the event. It’d be cool to have little art stations set up around the room, I guess I’ve just always wanted to be a muse.
I really don’t want to deal with funeral directors; the whole funeral industry just seems really conservative for my taste, so I’d like the whole “wake” thing to go down at someone’s house or a bar. Since my family is from Brantford, I’d want them to rent out a venue like Two Doors, so that there’d be room for a band, the public reading of my diary entries and art making.”
So, I’ll really be asking a lot of my family here. A time in which my body is laid out on our kitchen table (or my bed) atop icepacks for everyone to come and touch, a natural burial in a mushroom suite and then a party. I can’t deny it’s kind of selfish, but from everything I’ve learned through this project, an experience like this would be tremendously healing and healing is the ultimate objective of a funeral.
It’s funny, because at the beginning of this project the idea of an open casket or traditional burial made me queasy. I didn’t like the idea of people seeing me dead and wanted to be cremated as soon as possible. Now that I understand the environmental impact of cremation and embalming, I cannot consciously pursue these methods of disposal. I want to create as little harm on the earth as possible and allow my corpse to sustain and feed the earth.