I don't remember when death was first explained to me. Strangely, because I have a lot of vivid memories from childhood and adolescence. I feel like it's something I should remember.
When did I first become aware of the fact that everyone dies? That my grandparents would die? That my parents would die? That I would die?
I, strangely, don't know. I don't remember that ever being explained to me.
I remember hearing that my grandpa had died. The first of my close family members to pass away in my lifetime. But what I remember most about that was that my parents decided that we children wouldn't go to the funeral. That my father would go, but my mother and the three of us kids wouldn't. I don't remember the whys or the wherefores, but I guess I was okay with that.
My parents had tried to keep us away from seeing him the way he was towards the end. A non-smoker dying of emphysema. A horrible way to die.
My younger brother insisted on visiting him in the hospital to the point that my parents finally relented, but I recall being told that all my grandpa could do was wink at him, as he would always do when he caught our eye across the dining table as we carried on playing in their lounge room while the adults talked around the table and drank tea.
I don't remember the explanation for death I was no doubt given as a child, at some point.
I remember the talk about making love, having sex, fucking. The explanations of puberty and menstruation. The books my mother borrowed from the library to help me understand what would happen to my body as I moved through that awkward stage between being a child and being a woman.
Those discussions, her openness and the books she gave me to read meant I didn't face those things with fear the way her mother had. It meant I could ask any question of her about those things that I wanted an answer to. But I don't remember asking her about death, ever.
I remember my mother telling my brother and me that one of my father's former co-workers in the Northern Territory had passed away from AIDS when we were both still in primary school after we'd moved to Melbourne. Her explaining homosexuality in a non-judgmental way and probably a vague explanation of AIDS; as much as we needed or wanted to know at the time. I guess I didn't ask many questions. I listened. I took it all in. I learned homosexuality wasn't bad from a young age, but I never really thought about his death as deeply.
Then, in 1992, at 14 years of age, I found myself in a cemetery in New Orleans. A cemetery many know from the film 'Easy Rider'. A cemetery full of vaults built above ground to avoid human remains draining off into the river.
I was fascinated. This was the closest I'd ever come to death and I found it intriguing. The way life and death was celebrated through these places. The way their graves were created in as elaborate a fashion as their homes.
They were beautiful, despite the death they encased. They were time capsules. Memorials to those inside. A fashion statement. A record. Bragging rights after death.
Even at that young age, I knew I didn't personally want to be buried, but I had fallen in love with cemeteries. With graveyards. With the art of the stonemason. With the ceremony. The ritual.
Over the years I found myself consuming books about death; documentaries about death and the places people are buried. About how our bodies are handled after we die. About burials. About graveyards. About cemeteries.
I've spent countless hours, camera in hand, wandering through churchyards, graveyards, cemeteries, crypts, and whatever other names you want to call those places where people are laid to rest.
Generally, I find them places of peace, of relaxation. Like parks, but with the remains of those who came before still present in them.
But I know they often have reputations of being places of unrest. Of disrespect to those interred there. Not all of these places are peaceful or have been peaceful in the past.
In the decades since my grandpa died, I've managed to avoid the realities of death. At 42 years of age, somehow, I've managed never to attend a funeral. Never to have seen a dead body. Never to have spent time in the company of someone in their final hours or watching them pass from this world.
I consider myself lucky, but I'm also aware that I live a closeted life by not having been exposed to those things. Death is, after all, a part of life. From the time we're born we're dying. This is a simple fact not even I can escape. And for someone who actively seeks out the final resting places of the dead, it's not lost on me that I’ve managed to evade being exposed to these things.
However, for as long as I can remember, I’ve had an overwhelming awareness of my own mortality. I’m conscious this impacts me in terms of my fear of falling, for example, but also my reluctance to get a driver’s licence. My fear of others around me dying. My fear of dying. And more specifically, my fear of dying alone and no one knowing or being nearby to prevent that.
I often choose a solitary life which means I’m more likely to be alone if something unfortunate happens. Best case scenario: my flatmate will find me hours after the fact, too late to change the outcome. Worst case scenario: he or someone else will find me weeks later, again, too late to change the outcome.
Even in my worst stages of depression, I knew I wasn’t a suicide risk because what was making me most unhappy was not living my life the way I wanted to live it. I’ve always loved life and been aware of how much more I want to do, so my depression has always been related to not being able to live the life I’d like. Not due to wanting to end my life. I count myself lucky again for that.
But it doesn’t lessen my fascination with death. With how we handle the dead.
Despite my fascination with graveyards, I don’t want to be buried. I’m an outspoken advocate for organ donation (and, in fact, donation of anything that can be donated) and, as an atheist, I don’t believe in the hereafter or reincarnation or anything that requires my body to remain whole after my death.
So, while I love the stonemasons’ artistry, and the pomp and circumstance of heraldic funerals and elaborate mausoleums, vaults and headstones, I’ll settle for returning to ashes and the earth when it’s my time.
Though I hope my time doesn’t come anytime soon.
