Letters - 11 October 2024
From death and dying to prejudices
Death and dying
Penny Lilley (4 October) spoke to me very strongly. The way that someone grieves the loss of a loved one is very individual.
When I lost my mother last year it was, and continues to be, an overwhelming experience. I had a similar reaction to words like ‘died’ and ‘death’, though I hadn’t expected to. As her only close relative, I had to inform the rest of the family and all her friends. I handled her funeral and estate, and then at every medical appointment I had to break the news over and over, to the doctors, nurses and dentist who had known me primarily as my mother’s carer up to that point.
Euphemisms aren’t a denial of the reality of someone’s death, but when someone is trying to cope with the rawness of grief, every day is already a huge challenge. If using euphemisms helps that person to navigate the world while coming to terms with their loss, I struggle to see why it is problematic. It might enable the grieving person to get through a conversation without breaking down in public.
As part of my role here at the Friend, I handle the death notices. I see my responsibility to be upholding families as they place a notice, ensuring the gentle discipline of our house style is applied so that notices are informative but not obituaries. Telling grieving relatives what words to use in terms of death, passing, loss, etc, about their loved one doesn’t feel gentle.
Elinor Smallman (writing in a personal capacity)
Long-term solutions
Reading the article in the Friend of 27 September by Imi Hills I could only respond Amen, Amen and again Amen.
I am seventy-five so at the older end but I recall the radicalism of earlier decades (and not just Quakers), recalling Trevor Huddleston, bishop of Stepney, and his book Naught For Your Comfort; and Dom Hélder Câmara, bishop of Recife, ‘when I fed the poor they called me a saint, when I asked why they had no food they called me a communist’.
So Imi, carry on your quest. You are in a line of many people of faith whose radicalism meant they offered ‘naught for the comfort’ of the power structures that formed the societies of which they were a part. Prophets have a long (if not always honoured) history in Judaeo-Christian history.
Peter Bellenes
