Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

A fascinating combination of memoir and history of the funeral industry. Maybe not for you if you're squeamish, as some of the descriptions are pretty gross (though nothing as intense as [b:Stiff 32145 Stiff The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers Mary Roach https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347656489l/32145.SX50.jpg 1188203], if I remember correctly). Also, there's some description/discussion of stillbirth and infant death, if that's something you don't want to read about or listen to. The author reads the audiobook of this and her experience from “Ask a Mortician” really shows, as she's a very entertaining narrator.

Man, this book hit a lot harder than I expected it to. The only other book I've read by Doughty is [b:Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And other Questions about Dead Bodies 52672113 Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And other Questions about Dead Bodies Caitlin Doughty https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1593186716l/52672113.SY75.jpg 68120089] which delivers death facts in bite sizes and presumably to children as a target audience. I kinda expected this book to be similar, just specifically about crematoriums. Boy, was I wrong. This book was instead more like a semi-autobiography of Doughty's time working in a crematorium in her early twenties. It's clear that this time was a transformative one for her, both in her attitude towards death as well as crystallizing what she wanted to accomplish in changing the modern American attitude to death. In turn, it brings us the readers just that little bit closer to that conversation and confrontation with death and mortality.We are all just future corpses.Preparing for death and how we would like one's body to be disposed after that is undoubtedly a difficult conversation to have with any of our loved ones, and probably an even more difficult one to have with yourself. In this book, Doughty raps hard on the “death-denial culture” that has sprung only in the most recent century or so, calling back on historical times when death has always been a lot closer to people, to homes, to families, and had been an integral part of customs and traditions. She argues that being in denial about what is essentially a fact of life is what is making death that much more traumatizing and difficult to accept and confront when it does happen. I love how she took as an example Siddartha Gautama, who attained enlightenment and became the Buddha of Buddhism because he went out in the world to witness life, suffering, death, and how we all become ashes and dust in the end, and not because he stuck to his sheltered life in the palace without any and every reminder that pain, suffering, and death exists.There has never been a time in the history of the world when a culture has broken so completely with traditional methods of body disposition and beliefs surrounding mortality.It's so timely that I'm reading this book while a Muslim wedding is being held at the public ground floor space of the residential block opposite mine. Because it's public and under government housing, that space is often used for Chinese funerals (wakes) as well as Muslim weddings, baby showers, etc. These occurrences have always been an everyday norm for me but which, I think, might be exactly what Caitlin is trying to advocate here in being less in denial about death.Accepting death doesn't mean you won't be devastated when someone you love dies. It means you will be able to focus on your grief, unburdened by bigger existential questions like “Why do people die?” and “Why is this happening to me?” Death isn't happening to you. Death is happening to us all.This passage in particular was so impactful to me and my own denial about death. I'm probably not alone in fearing mortality and having to confront it, both in myself and in my loved ones. I'm still not 100% there and still in the middle of the process of fully accepting it, but I'm glad that Doughty, through her Youtube channel as well as this book, has kickstarted me in the journey of accepting this ultimate and inevitable outcome of life.