Discussion: How a Texas Death Cafe Helped Me Face My Father's Suicide Attempt

TPM Article Topics
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Discussion for article #234019

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“I just want to talk about death,” I say. “And being dead. And how my body will be splayed out when I die.”

“Stop,” TPM readers say. “I hate it when you post this shit.”

FIFY.

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I got a little further, to this passage about the “invisible, intangible network that ultimately doesn’t mean much” a reference to people who take care others in ill-health and ultimately their deaths.

To the author: I spent five years taking care of my dying parents, and was by their side when each of them died. I moved in with them, cooked their meals, did their laundry and in my father’s case got him out of bed in the morning, bathed him and dressed him and put hi to bed at night. I relied upon countless home health-care workers and health care providers, some of who are like family to me even now. I have a brother who likely would have committed suicide were not for his family’s support, and we live every day with the knowledge he may someday kill himself. Who the fuck are are you to describe us an “invisible, intangible network that ultimately doesn’t mean much”.

You’re 31, and by your admission you’ve never experienced the death of a loved or even an acquaintance, and yet you fetishize death and act as a voyeur to other people’s pain. Grow the fuck up you juvenile jack-off.

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Um…that’s not what he was saying. He was talking about technology. He was also conveying the general conversation, not his own thoughts. “Juvenile jackoff”? Really?

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I’ve watched as my supremely better-half has acted as caretaker for her mother who passed 2 years back-- and for myself when I was seriously ill and near death 3 years ago. She also was my angel of mercy when I underwent dual hip replacements a year ago Nov/Dec 2013-- caring for me hand and foot till I was able to do so again.

I will never dismiss any aspect of her need-- ever again-- after witnessing what kindness she managed for others day-after-day for several years.

Bless her-- and bless you too.

jw1

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Then the author failed IMO.
Superficiality from someone who hasn’t experienced death of friends and family in a quick succession–
gets no points from me-- while ‘coming to terms with my father’s suicide attempt’.

He shouldn’t wade into the deep end of a pool-- if he’s not equipped to swim there.

EDIT: From his admission that he’d not experienced the death of anyone close for years-- I can certainly relate-- as I went for nearly 30 years-- up until 10 years ago-- without losing anyone immediate or close. I look back at my own attitudes on death prior to then-- and now-- and I can honestly say the author has no capacity to understand where many of us have traveled.

jw1

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It’s pretty clear you’re willfully interpreting. Here’s the full passage, in context of the actual gathering:

We talk about how technology diminishes the need to visit a sick relative in person, how we’re all part of this invisible, intangible network that ultimately doesn’t mean much. The conversations are interesting, but meandering; we don’t get too deep on any one topic, which is a disappointment. And even though I feel like I’m in a safe space, I still can’t muster saying anything personal.

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I disagree Nona - I know I didn’t willfully misinterpret that passage, and in fact, in re-reading it I still read it the same way.

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Yes. Really.

If you’re going to post an article on how people personally deal with
death and dying, maybe you should consider having an author whose
experience is a little more relevant than “throwing on a black bootleg
shirt depicting a logo for the short-lived Swedish black metal band
Morbid”, and making “an appropriate Spotify playlist.”

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Everyone’s experience is relevant. That’s the point of the piece.

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Is everyone’s experience relevant? I mean, sure, we’re all gonna die some day, but is everyone’s experience with death equally relevant? This is more a point for the author than you, but if I were attending a group, however informal, intended to help me cope with a death, and someone who had no real experience with death began attending and participating in that group, wearing a Morbid t-shirt and listening to death-fetish music, and whose only apparent reason for being there was to wallow in my grief and then write about it, I’d feel violated and would probably stop attending that group.

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TPM has again posted an imposter under a compelling headline. When you click on it, you find yet another puerile, vain essay by a young person who fancies himself a writer. Nobody cares what T-shirt he wore or what stupid metal bands he listened to on his way to the self-help meeting to discuss death.
It is an achievement of sorts. He managed to trivialize one of the deepest and most humbling of all topics; the fact the we remember and grieve others’ deaths, can anticipate our own and have no way of really knowing what happens after.

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Spot on. I have a suggestion about how to select which of these feature stories to accept and which to reject. As soon as the author mentions what he/she wore or his/her purple hair, tattoos or body piercings, just say no. Those are all pretty good signs that the author is more concerned about coming off as cool than with actually shedding light on something.

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That’s what likely switched me off.
Coy, flippant, hipster (with a dragon tattoo).
Thirty-one-year-olds I’m in touch with don’t have the gravitas–
or experience with mortality-- to know enough to write about it.

jw1

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Yeah, it really wasn’t as altruistic as it sounds - I was recently divorced and really, really miserable and absolutely hated living alone (my how some things change). It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. Glad you’re better though JW!

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Fact is one has to have had some number of life experiences to deal with death.

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I am a little confused 1972. He explicitly refers to technology and how this invisible, intangible network (i.e. TECHNOLOGY) can make us believe that we don’t have to visit a “sick relative in person.” How could the invisible, intangible network possibly be construed as a reference to physical people who ARE present with the sick or dying? The last time I checked most human care-givers are quite visible and tangible.

And I think your anger at him for his flippant attitude at the start is entirely misplaced. He makes it quite clear that this is a defense against actually dealing with his emotions about his father’s attempted suicide. By the end, he states explicitly that he is not going to attempt to avoid the issue any further. And okay so he hasn’t been with his parents as they died as you have (and as I have as well). So what? He’s younger than we are, has had different life experiences. He is attempting to speak openly and honestly about a topic that he admits is very painful for him. That’s laudable, especially since the topic is of great importance to all of us, in one way or another.

There are plenty of people who do express juvenile or hateful ideas about death. This author is most certainly not one of them.

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A little bit of death realization or just the thought of death, should change your outlook on life and appreciation for it. Even if you are searching for meaning, you are alive and able to search and have that journey which is better than no journey at all.
The grand plan seems odd to me but it is the plan.

If one lives to old age and expires, this is as expected. Its the dying before your time sort of death, death by violence or unexplainable accident that really hurts.
Life can be considered to short or plenty long. I’m in the too short group but because I feel that human life is odd. We breed before we have become full adults and had time to enjoy it and we have very little time to gain experience and put it to use before we are considered useless and begin to deteriorate. The end of human life is not exactly a splendorous thing. Losing hair, sight, hearing, mobility and your brains isn’t such a great reward.

The good times can be a fairly small window and should be treasured, enjoy it while you gots it and live while your alive. Life is life’s reward.

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Wow, this a tough room. The reference to the t-shirt was a bit silly, I admit. In fact, though, I think this concern with his image is meant to convey how he is trying to keep the subject of death at arm’s length. That he is not endorsing this kind of attitude is pretty clear by the end.

From my perspective, it’s a good thing when the topic of our relationship to death is discussed openly. I don’t think one has to be near the end of one’s own life or to have suffered an unusual amount to be qualified to say something about the subject. We all have our own particular way of relating to it; this author’s is through the attempted suicide of his father. As far as I’m concerned, the simple fact that you have a relatively young guy who is not ignoring death altogether is a hopeful sign. What he had to say was perhaps not profound, but I don’t see it at all as trivializing the subject.

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Though I’ve got to hand it to TPM.
On-the-fly and likely in response to replies above-- the front page headline on this piece has morphed from:

How a Texas Death Cafe Helped Me Face My Father’s Suicide Attempt

to–

How ‘Death Cafes’ Can Help Us Face Our Pasts

Guess that’s a step further than ‘knowing your audience’-- in attempting to ‘mollify your audience’.

I don’t wish to create a gradated scale of seriousness relating the author’s experiences to my own.
But the fact that it takes a business-model that has no more relevancy than ‘everyone needs plumbing parts at some point’-- and how this is the basis for a long-form TPM article-- comes across as non-sequitir to the topic of death-- as experienced by individuals-- who have-- well, had to deal with it personally and frequently.

The author IMHO seems to express that this focused business-model holds sway with him–
because – it’s trending.

jw1
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