Death gets a makeover

Instead of the taboo topic it used to be, death is slowly becoming something to be discussed, and sometimes, a celebration of life

Source: Straits times
https://www.straitstimes.com/life/this-is-how-youre-going-to-die

Excerpt:-
“…Ms Tan Ming Li believes that changing practices are often a response to the funerals and grief that Singaporeans themselves have experienced in the past. Ms Tan, 51, founded the non-profit The Life Review in 2023 to normalise conversations around dying and grief.

“When I lost my mother, there was no conversation,” she recalls. “It was just ‘Go back to school, continue’. The adults go back to work. Nothing happens. People didn’t have the language. They didn’t have a way to deal with it. What does processing death even mean?

Even as death literacy has reached an all-time high, Ms Tan is wary of how unnervingly efficient Singapore institutions have become at dealing with it, often at the expense of making space for grief.

The loss of many last rites, many of which helped make sense of a death, is something that concerns her. “That has eroded the whole grief process and how we feel as human beings,” she says. “Now, in doing this work, we’re almost recreating these rituals.”

“What’s very efficient now is that if you don’t have somebody to keep watch over the body, they can have someone stay over for you,” she adds. “Things have become so efficient and sanitised. When does the grief process start to hit you?”

That same efficiency seeps into the recent policy push to get Singaporeans to complete Lasting Power of Attorney forms and advance care planssince 2023. Uptake has risen, but remains low: About one in seven Singaporeans have completed their LPAs as at February.

Ms Tan worries that these documents are often ends in themselves, when they should be starting points for important conversations. She observes that many complete these forms without discussing their full implications with family, potentially creating new forms of stress. 

It is stressful to have the responsibility of making decisions for an incapacitated loved one, especially if you are unsure what he or she wants.

In her non-profit work, she observes that one of the common reasons people seek out death doulas – a paid service toguide the dying and their loved ones through the process – is that they are wrestling with regret over how they handled a former loved one’s dying wishes.

With the last 10 years of one’s life likely to be spent in the grip of chronic illness, Ms Tan thinks it is better to ponder these difficult questions and talk them through with loved ones sooner rather than later.”