I interviewed 4 men 17,18, 19 and 23. They all currently reside in upstate NY. 17,18, and 19 are seniors at Roxbury central school, 23 is a wwoofer at the organic farm. As soon as I posed my first question “what does the word death connote, make you think of?” a silent eerie but sinful smile seem to come upon all my interviewees faces. They all hold that look of mysterious daring, none of us knowing the answer to what death is. But yet they all seem to try and give us the assurance of what is despuse…. 23 with his holy smile said “life, the life after this”. 18 said “blackness non-existent” the second time I had asked him the question so he tacked on “ tough questions”. 17 said he would be “no longer with us, no longer here, not as much gone but in a different place”. All seeming to have an idea of what might be after if there is an after. Then I would ask the weirdest question of them all, what they would like to happen with the remains of their body. Which implies that I have this dream in my head that if a body remains someone would take care of it. This means I am assuming after my death there would be all these variables, other life, my body, family that cares. 3 of my interviewees said they wanted to be cremated and wanted their organs to be donated to science. 19 said he wants his body to be left to rot, he wants “a bone or sumthin’ left on this earth”. 23 has faith that he will be saved and go to heaven to find all his family after death that is if he is not damned to hell. But he says no one really knows where we are going, this is why you must have faith. I believe the contrary I just live life for the best day-by-day following my intuition wherever that may be. Not concerned by death which I have no control over, yet know is coming. He says “that is a ballzy way of living”. 17 said that when someone died he would just store the best memories of them somewhere in his brain and that’d be it. Those memories would be “filed in my brain” both conscious and sub conscious. All his pets and rodents he buried and “put them back where they belonged.” 23 said he buried all his pets when they died.
I believe that 17 & 23 seemed to bubble but only because they knew the answers to what they were responding, they seemed to be an ever fresh thought in there minds that they were sure of. Especially 23 with his Christian beliefs, he was reciting his fact and there seemed to be no thinking to do. 18 really seemed to think but did not seem to get that deep with his responses, they seemed to be only the surface, he seemed as though he was charting into deep waters in which he did not belong. All my interviewees seemed to be at discomfort with the thought of caskets and the “traditional American funeral” from many general conversations I have had over the topic recently there seems to be a major shift towards cremation, and it being the most popular and desired act towards care of the dead.
hey eloise,
ReplyDeletei really enjoyed your post. i liked the language that you used to describe peoples reactions to your questions, and i liked the way you peeped-in their quotes. i liked the larger ideas that came across throughout your writing, which, mainly, were that death means different things to different people and they chose how they'd like to think about it. we live in a society where we have options and where the controversy on picking a form of care for a dead body doesn't seem too controversial.
although i really enjoyed your post, i still find that your posts are very choppy. i think that to make your posts have more of a flow, you should read it through aloud and seperate the larger chunks into paragraphs.
thanks girlly,
nai