Living Years Blog

Entries categorized as ‘Interesting Facts’

Six Interesting Facts about Death

November 18, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Little Known Fact About Death #1 ~
At least one place (in India) doesn’t bury their dead. They leave the dead bodies sitting out to be consumed by vultures.

Little Known Fact About Death #2 ~
In the 19th century, Egypt had such an excess of mummies that they started using them as fuel for trains engines.

Little Known Fact About Death #3 ~
Approximately 100,000,000,000 people (that’s 100 billion!) have died since humans began.

Little Known Fact About Death #4 ~
Queen Victoria insisted that she get buried with the bathrobe of her long-dead husband, Prince Albert. She also took a plaster cast of Albert’s hand with her to the grave.

Little Known Fact About Death #5 ~
A Swedish company called ‘Promessa’ now offers an ecological burial. They freeze-dry your body in liquid nitrogen, then pulverize it with high-frequency vibrations, and then put your powdered remains into a cornstarch coffin. It all decomposes within six to twelve months.

Little Known Fact About Death #6 ~
Maybe people just aren’t comfortable using the word ‘die’. There are more than 200 euphemisms for death, so we don’t have to utter the real words.

Categories: Celebrating Life · Interesting Facts · Research

Did you know that…

November 12, 2009 · Leave a Comment

66f3d4e02475296f4b876fa78395be8fJust when you thought you had heard it all we find out that you can buy a replica of Cleopatra’s funeral barge on Second Life, the virtual online world!

From the posting: This ancient Egyptian funeral boat has a carved jet Anubis figure at the front.  It is fully functionable. The driver can sit in the decorated chair and pilot the barge on any open tract of water. While driven, the dark animated flames on the torches will leave a trail.

When still, a flowing fog will play around the base of the ship as it rests in the water. While in motion, the fog will also leave a trail, looking like spooky wakes in the water marking where the funeral barge has passed.  The sheer mourning linnen hanging above the chair is animated to appear moved by a light breeze.

A second passenger can also ride by seating themselves on the long sarcophagus at the back of the barge.  The entire craft is decorated throughout with dark and mysterious Egyptian hieroglyphs and art.

Categories: Interesting Facts

Maybe grief isn’t so bad afterall

November 5, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Drjoe460x460

Regardless of how well we look after our health, it is a given that we will die one day. By caring for our bodies we can enjoy good health for as long as we live but we will not live on this earth forever. We all know this and yet death is  a subject many people avoid thinking or talking about.

When someone we know and love dies it is normal to feel sad and to grieve for that person. There are many different ways in which people do this. Many cultures have rituals and ceremonies around death to help those who remain behind to come to acceptance and closure.

The vast majority of people will do exactly that in their own way and in their own time-if we let them. More recently there has been ,as part of a general trend to medicalize normal human emotions, a tendency to see grief as some form of illness which requires some form of treatment.

It is interesting then to see a new book, ”The other side of sadness” which has looked at the path of many people through grief. The finding is that 85 to 90% of people cope and adapt in their own way and time without any form of treatment including formal counseling.

Is this really surprising?  People have coped with death since the beginning of mankind. Whilst counseling has a role for some people, the majority will do just fine with adequate time and the support of friends and family. When facing grief we need to be able to both enjoy memories of the god times coupled with sadness that there will be no more good times with the deceased.

What sometimes makes it tricky is that there can be mixed emotions. This too is quite normal. We might be angry or have unresolved conflicts with the person who has died. It is seen as inappropriate to be angry with someone who has passed on but the fact that they have does not in itself mean that suddenly the issue you had with them has died.  It means though that you must now come to terms with it without the other person. Sometimes we need to shake our fist at the sky or stomp our feet to release the emotion. This is not for everyone but has a valid role for some.

The key in all this is that grief is a normal human emotion. It is not a disease, which requires treatment. It is a reaction to an event such as the passing of a loved one. It is no more abnormal to feel grief in this situation than to feel joy on winning lotto yet no one would suggest counseling after the latter.

Some people will benefit from counseling if they are getting “stuck” and find themselves not able to move on with their lives. However just the knowledge that what you are experiencing is normal ,and that in most instances will be a stage from which you emerge is an empowering start point.

For more information on Dr. Joe, you can visit his website here.

Categories: Interesting Facts · Interviews · News Items · Research

Rear Vision’s Palliative Care podcast

November 3, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Picture 4

First broadcast by Radio National in may, 2009, this palliative care podcast covers it’s short history and practive throughout the world. Rear Vision tracks the history of this approach to dying from its origins in Britain to Australia, where the world’s first professor of palliative care was appointed.

The transcript is available here, or you can listen to it directly here: 

Categories: Interesting Facts · Interviews · Living History · News Items · Pod Cast · Research

Did you know that…

October 30, 2009 · 1 Comment

aleksanteri_bukefdetail

The most expensive funeral so far was that of Alexander the Great. It would cost about $600,000,000 in today’s money.  One of the reasons was the building of a road from Babylon to Alexandria, big enough move a jewel studded hearse the size of a small building which was pulled by 64 horses.

Categories: Interesting Facts · News Items · Research

Smoking, obesity ‘grow as world threat’

October 29, 2009 · Leave a Comment

kidsTobacco and obesity are overtaking hunger and infectious disease as leading causes of death and illness across the developing world, an Australian expert has warned.

As globalisation had lifted millions of people out of poverty, Dr Paul Kowal said free trade agreements had allowed the rapid movement of processed food and tobacco products into the world’s poorest nations.

Many developing countries now faced new and mounting health threats from the expanding availability of fast food, soft drinks and cigarettes, he said.

“To increase development in a country, they are forced to open up to transnational corporations including tobacco corporations,” Dr Kowal said of the trend emerging in the world’s developing nations.

“And there is a clear correlation between the local presence of a tobacco company and increasing tobacco uptake.”

Dr Kowal holds a position on a research committee within the World Health Organisation (WHO) and is also a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Newcastle.

He spoke to AAP on Tuesday after he addressed the International Conference on Realising the Rights to Health and Development for All underway in Hanoi in Vietnam.  Dr Kowal pointed to WHO estimates that, if trends continue, there will be more than eight million tobacco-related deaths a year by 2030, 80 per cent of them in the developing world.

In 2000, the number of overweight and obese adults in the world exceeded the number of underweight for the first time.

Dr Kowal said Indonesia was a classic example of a developing country that had levels of smoking and obesity “increasing as the gross national income per capita increased” while India, China and many South-East Asian countries were on a similar path.

He said tobacco companies were known to tailor their marketing efforts in developing countries to try to reach those in the population that had not traditionally smoked – women.

They also worked to sidestep advertising bans through the sponsorship of sporting teams or by selling cigarettes “by the stick”.

Vietnam, which has one of the world’s highest rates of smokers at 56 per cent of men and two per cent of women, has moved to ban smoking in indoor public places from January next year.

Another speaker told the conference that Vietnam spent about $US77.5 million ($A84.47 million) each year on health care to treat tobacco-related diseases such as lung cancer and heart disease.

“Smoking kills, that’s pretty clear, and it has overtaken infectious disease in a lot of lower-income countries yet there is still a misconception there that infectious disease is rampant,” Dr Kowal said.

“In fact, we’re seeing a double burden of disease – non-communicable disease from risk factors like induced poor eating habits or smoking uptake is becoming a bigger and bigger problem.”

Health experts at the conference are calling on governments to increase tobacco taxes, ban tobacco advertising, improve education about tobacco-related diseases, adopt global and legally-binding codes, and limit market access to transnational corporations.

via AAP

Categories: Announcements · Interesting Facts · Interviews · News Items

Not quite Halloween, but almost….

October 28, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Day of the DeadAt first glance, the Mexican custom of El Día de los Muertos — the Day of the Dead — may sound much like the U.S. custom of Halloween. After all, the celebration traditionally starts at midnight the night of Oct. 31, and the festivities are abundant in images related to death.

But the customs have different origins, and their attitudes toward death are different: In the typical Halloween festivities, death is something to be feared. But in el día de los muertos, death — or at least the memories of those who have died — is something to be celebrated.

El día de los muertos, which continues until Nov. 2, has become one of the biggest holidays in Mexico, and celebrations are becoming more common in areas of the United States with a large Hispanic population. Its origins are distinctly Mexican: During the time of the Aztecs, a monthlong summer celebration was overseen by the goddess Mictecacihuatl, the Lady of the Dead. After the Aztecs were conquered by Spain and Catholicism became the dominant religion, the customs became intertwined with the Christian commemoration of All Saints’ Day on Nov. 1.

Specifics of the celebration vary with region, but one of the most common customs is the making of elaborate altars to welcome departed spirits home. Vigils are held, and families often go to cemeteries to fix up the graves of their departed relatives. Festivities also frequently include traditional foods such as pan de muerto (bread of the dead), which can conceal a miniature skeleton.

Book me on the next plane to Mexico!

Categories: Celebrating Life · Events · Interesting Facts

What really happens when you die?

October 28, 2009 · Leave a Comment

15504168_307a5ef1cb

As I have said here many times before, in working for Living Years you come across some pretty interesting information.  I just found this amazing, and very practicle article on the topic of “what happens when you die”.  Now I’m not talking in the spiritual context, but more the “what happens to my body” context.

Here are some snippets from the article:

To certify that someone is dead, you listen to the heart for one minute and feel for a pulse for one minute. You examine for signs of breathing, you look at the pupils to check there is no response to a shining light. If you’re not certain, you can rub on the breastbone, which is a very painful procedure: if they are not dead, they’ll quickly jump up and say, “That hurt!”

Many good things may come from a postmortem. You may find something that is relevant to subsequent generations – say, if a young mother has died and you find a coincidental breast cancer, you would suggest screening for her children.

The cremation chamber is fuelled by gas and has to be heated to at least 750C before we can load, or “charge”, the coffin. We have to adhere to strict guidelines and everything is logged automatically on the computer – time, date, duration, emissions, smoke levels, carbon monoxide, oxygen levels and the temperature in the different parts of the cremator. The computer prints out a report and every few months these are sent to environmental health.

One of the biggest problems with cremation is the amount of mercury going into the atmosphere and the ecosystem. In Britain, about 16% of the mercury that goes into the atmosphere is caused by cremations. Resomation is a greener alternative to cremation. It uses water, potassium hydroxide and steam heat to dissolve the body. At the moment there are only a few resomation chambers in operation in the world, all of them in the US – ours is at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota – but there has been interest from several UK councils and cemeteries about installing them. It does offer people a greener option.

For the full article, you can find it here:  guardian.co.uk

Categories: Interesting Facts · News Items · Research

Did you know that…..

October 27, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Scottish DressIn the Scottish highlands the deceased would be buried with a small amount of salt and soil placed on their chest. The soil implied that the body decays and becomes one with the earth. The salt, however, represents the soul and like the soul does not decay and die.

Categories: Celebrating Life · Interesting Facts

Unusual Funerals

October 23, 2009 · Leave a Comment

1330252When most people think about funerals, they usually think about traditional services that are held in either a church or funeral home, with a burial and gathering of family and friends for food afterwards. Many people these days aren’t so traditional, though. These individuals feel that funerals should be a celebration of a person’s life instead of a time to merely pay respects to the deceased person or mourn their death. They want funerals to be fun, if that is at all possible.

These unusual funerals, sometimes referred to as “alternative” can really be quite creative. Many of them may seem more like parties than funerals, which is usually the intention. There have been numerous unique ways to celebrate the life of a special loved one; there are companies that make “coffin” cakes, special urns that when opened, play the song, “How Dry I Am,” as well as many other uncommon funeral-related items.

Another popular way that people choose to memorialize their loved ones is by creating online memorials such as our service, Living Years. Aside from its convenience, there are several advantages to creating a Life Book. First of all, family members and friends are able to visit the website as often and whenever they desire to. Secondly, families can post photos of the deceased on the website, as well as poems, video clips, music, and anything else that they would like to have included.  For more information on creating a free Life Book, visit Living Years here.

These days, people don’t want pricey funerals, so many opt for simple memorials, instead. Many also desire to have their remains dispersed in some unusual manner rather than placed in an urn and displayed on someone’s fireplace mantel. This is usually decided by the deceased, prior to death, or possibly even the family.

For instance, Gene Rodenberry, creator of the hit TV show Star Trek, requested that a portion of his ashes be blasted into space.

Additionally, and even more shocking, is the fact that one deceased man’s cremated remains were used to create an egg timer, which most people find utterly unbelievable.

08Some deceased individuals make advance arrangements to have a specific theme at their funerals. More and more funeral homes are catering to these requests because these types of personalized funerals often bring great comfort to the family and friends-and surprisingly, usually a lower cost than conventional funeral services.

Traditional funerals will of course, always remain the norm for a majority of people, but for anyone who desires an “alternative” afterlife celebration for their loved ones to “enjoy” rather than dread, there are numerous possible choices to choose from. And if the theme or idea that a person has isn’t available at the alternative funeral home of their choice, most funeral home directors are willing to cater to almost any request.

It doesn’t matter if a wife wishes to have her deceased husband’s remains placed inside her diamond ring or a family chooses to hire jazz performers at their loved one’s funeral, if it makes the family happy, nearly anything is possible.

Thanks to Stacey J. Day for the inspiration.

Categories: Celebrating Life · Documentaries · Events · Interesting Facts · Living Years · Uncategorized