On a recent visit to a London funeral home, Hayley Campbell became well acquainted with the concept of death.
Mrs Campbell, a British-Australian journalist and author, had been invited to the funeral home to help dress a dead man before his funeral.
“We took off the clothes she was dead in and folded them up because her family wanted to keep them. Then we put them on the clothes she was going to bury,” she told ABC RN’s Saturday Extra.
“I don’t think I’ve been more nervous in my life than being there for someone in their last moments.”
But for Mrs. Campbell, the experience was not terrifying. There was nothing dark or creepy about the process. Far.
Looking back, he calls it the “gift of a lifetime.”
Death is everywhere
On average, about 6,300 people worldwide die every hour. That’s about 152,000 people every day. And 55.4 million people every year.
Death is happening everywhere, all the time, and at some point in the future, it will happen to you.
But for Mrs. Campbell, the concept of death in Western cultures is, at best, obscured and, at worst, completely absent from our lives.
Or as she says, “We run away from death, biologically, but also psychologically.”
Hayley Campbell spent two years immersed in the death industry, talking to those who work with death. (Provided by: Hayley Campbell)
So for her new book, All the Living and the Dead, Ms. Campbell spent two years immersed in people working with death, or what she calls the “death industry.”
Here are three people he met on this trip.
The funeral director
Poppy Mardall runs Poppy’s funeral home in south London.
With its pastel-colored brand, the creative ceremonies on offer, and the promotion of sustainable eco-friendly packaging, it’s not the funeral home many expect.
Loading
It was Mrs. Mardall who invited Mrs. Campbell to come and help her dress the dead man.
“That was part of his progressive thinking. He wanted to give me a chance to see death,” Ms. Campbell says.
Mrs. Mardall was not always a funeral director. He used to work in high-end auction houses, selling expensive art and jetset around the world to find new pieces.
But his life changed after he almost died of typhoid in Ghana.
“[Poppy] she was angry because she had to face death and the idea of dying without ever having seen a dead person in her life. And I think that’s true for most of us: in Australia, coffins are [usually] closed and here in England, the coffins are closed too, “says Mrs Campbell.
“[Poppy had this] for intense … [Imagine] if you’re dying, if you’re close to death, but you’ve never seen a corpse in real life, all you have are corpses from video games and movies, that’s terrifying. “
So, after recovering from typhoid fever, Mrs. Mardall decided to become an independent funeral director.
“He is progressive in the way he does it. He encourages his clients to come in and dress their dead, to have some kind of interaction with the body, in order to give them a chance to see death and count. with her, “Ms. Campbell said. he says.
The bearer of mourning
As a young midwife, Clare Beesley had a traumatic experience that affected her life.
A woman at the hospital where she worked suffered a very premature child. The baby was so premature that both the family and the medical staff knew he would not survive.
But the baby was born breathing and lived for a few minutes; all the while, the mother kept calling the young midwife for help.
“Clare didn’t know what she could do. And she chased after her for years,” says Mrs. Campbell.
Later in her career, Ms. Beesley had the opportunity to become a mourning midwife, a midwife who only gives birth to babies who have died in the womb or will not live long. And she grabbed it.
“Through training, Clare discovered that she could do something. She couldn’t bring babies back to life, but it could improve the mother’s situation,” Ms. Campbell says.
“Because if your baby dies, you can hold it, you can even take it home for days before it is cremated or buried. You can have a short life with your baby.”
And for many people, this can make all the difference.
The manufacturer of deadly masks
The use of death masks, a model of a person’s face taken after death, dates back millennia.
Since ancient Egypt, they have been used by various societies to worship, commemorate, or identify the dead.
The deadly mask of bushranger Ned Kelly, found in the Old Melbourne Gaol, is perhaps the most famous of these relics.
The deadly mask of bushranger Ned Kelly is in the Old Melbourne Gaol. (Getty Images: Marc Dozier)
Deadly masks were all the rage in the last century, but UK artist and sculptor Nick Reynolds is trying to reclaim them.
Reynolds runs what is apparently the only business that still commercially creates death masks in the UK.
“[The finished product is] this 3D image of a person’s face as it was when he died … Nick is very careful to do everything right. It won’t smooth your face so the wrinkles aren’t there, “says Campbell.
“Nick said most people buy them and could put them in a drawer. [But] widows can put them on the pillow next to them while they sleep … These are very personal things. “
Artist and sculptor Nick Reynolds made a deadly mask for punk businessman Malcolm McLaren, which appears on his headstone. (Getty Images: Jim Dyson)
Mr. Reynolds has a deadly mask from his father, with whom he talks occasionally.
The lessons
Ms. Campbell says one of her biggest findings after spending time with these people was that there are so many opportunities to interact with death and we should take advantage of them.
Some in the death industry encourage people to come face to face with a corpse. (Getty Images)
“[After a loved one has died]there are so many things that allow you to do what I didn’t know, “he says.
“Dressing the dead person, being next to the grave with the undertakers, being in the crematorium as the coffin enters the fire … All of these experiences are available to you as a family member.”
More extra Saturday stories:
“[With a funeral, we think] ‘Let’s just do it’ … And I think it’s sad because there are these transformative moments available. I really think they are transformers. “
So, is there a peace that comes with these experiences?
“For me, seeing is understanding. But it’s more than that … It’s caring for someone at the last minute, the last point you can be there for them,” says Ms. Campbell.
The other thing he learned was the important, though largely unrecognized, work done by the death industry.
As Mrs. Campbell says: “A body does not magically disappear or be transported to the grave … [People in the death industry] dealing with things we can’t bear to look at, or so we assume. Our sky falling is their routine. “
He says everyone he met had their own personal motives on the reasons why they had chosen to work in this industry, but they all shared one thing.
“They can’t bring a person back to life, but they can make things better for the living.”
RN in your inbox
Get more stories that go beyond the news cycle with our weekly newsletter.