A year or so of magical reading

I have been working on this one post for a while, realizing that it is too much for one post, but not sure how many and which posts it actually is.

It started out as a reading list about death, but also about dementia, and also about wholeness. Those topics all loom large in my life right now, and the bump into each other around my edges.

Really, it started with Black~ish. Specifically, it started with episode 5 of season 5. Bow commemorates her recently deceased father's birthday; it does not end up being as celebratory as she intended. Grief hits hard, and not always when you expect it. We see very different modes of grief for her and her mother, but what stayed with me was Pops' initial reluctance to deal, and then his understanding of how some things can comfort the living. It ends with Pops giving Dre instructions for his burial and so on. He says he is doing it for Dre. Based on his observing Bow, that makes sense, but also there is a feeling that it matters for Pops too. Maybe it is more of an acknowledgment of his love for Dre and Dre's family.

It inspired me to get to two books that I had been meaning to read for a long time and never gotten around to. They did relate to death. I thought I could pull them out, maybe along with some others, and be more able to deal with death. They were Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach, and The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.

The main thing Stiff did for me was introduce me to human composting, which does interest me.

Didion's work affected me more. For one thing, it kept giving me more books to read. Well, it really only ended up being three.

Intensive Care: A Doctor's Journal by John F. Murray

The first case involved a dementia patient, and I felt that, but she was the exception. I ended up thinking more about how we decide to value human life, but the closer look at what kind of life-saving measures are possible and their potential success rates may help me be clearer-eyed in the case of decision-making.

How We Die: Reflections of Life's Final Chapter by Sherwin B. Nuland

There was a chapter on dementia, and they were good (if hard) things to know. I also recognized other things here where reading it may not have just been for my mother. Part of how it helps me is giving me a mechanical understanding of different ways that the body stops. At some point I assume I will need to deal with that.

I also realized that this was probably the book an aunt was talking about once after the funeral of a cousin. Her main takeaway was that everyone wants to die peacefully in their sleep, and that's not how it usually happens. That is something I think about a lot.

The last one was the most disappointing. It was an etiquette book by Emily Post, but I failed to note the edition. I did check one out from the library, but it was too current and everything had changed.

In that older edition there was more about things like how long to wear black, and how old clothes could probably be dyed rather than new ones purchased at great cost. Also, light, warm foods - like tea and broth -  were important for the bereaved, because their systems had received a shock. Warm liquids could invigorate the circulation without requiring too much physical effort. Didion noticed that in conjunction with a neighbor who kept bringing her congee (apparently a rice porridge) through the period right after her husband's death.

I clung to that. A lot of my reading on this (and there is much more to write) stems from knowing that I am the responsible one that will have to look out for everyone else. That's not necessarily thinking that they are expecting it, but it is certainly not expecting anyone else to be on top of it. Perhaps that is not fair, but if everyone is kind of dazed and listless, then I need to know that they need broth! There is nothing like that in the new edition; it is all about what correspondence can be conducted through e-mail and social media, and things like that.

Where Didion hit me hardest was predicted by the title, but I didn't see it coming. Didion's year came after their daughter was hospitalized and then her husband died, everything suddenly and unexpectedly. There was a lot to deal with, and a lot of time spent trying to understand death and the body and medicine better. The "magical thinking" part is that on one level she was operating as though she believed that somehow by learning enough she could reach back and change it.

Yeah, that sounds like me. But you can't.

It is not a reason not to learn. I mean, at some point someone is still probably going to need broth. I will still need to know what phone calls to make. If there are signs of something coming, recognizing those signs can be helpful, whether that means there is something you can prevent or something you need to accept.

However, it is possible that there is really more to learn about acceptance, and that's something to work on as well.