The Denial of Death: Why we run from the inevitable
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The chief embalmer of a busy funeral home recently remarked, “No matter how often I do this procedure, I am always struck by how we end up here on the table by ourselves. We are in a single file line, we all die alone.” The cornerstone of human existence is its temporal nature. “None of […]
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Mank on Netflix explores the mysteries of Citizen Kane
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After Orson Welles and Herman Mankiewicz shared the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for 1941’s Citizen Kane, the wunderkind Welles sent this letter to his collaborator: “Dear Mankie, Here’s what I wanted to wire you after the Academy Dinner: ‘You can kiss my half.’ I dare to send it through the mails only now that I find it […]
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When Riddle and Ronstadt Made Beautiful Music Together
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“Who is Linda Ronstadt?” That was the question Grammy/Oscar/Emmy winning arranger Nelson Riddle asked when he hung up the phone after a conversation with Peter Asher, Ronstadt’s manager. It was May of 1982 and Riddle was no longer at the top of his game: his best years, those times when he and Frank Sinatra were recording […]
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Helping Children Understand COVID and Death
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2020 was truly the year of living dangerously. In the United States, when the final numbers are in, more than 3,000,000 will have died. Although Covid-19 claimed more than 300,000 of those lives in this country, it was not the only culprit. Deaths were up in many categories, including coronary heart disease, diabetes, and high […]
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Rituals Impact Grief Recovery after the Loss of a Loved One
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“Dying, a man may be loved, hated, mourned, missed; but once dead, he becomes the chief ornament of a complicated and formal social celebration.” These words from author John Steinbeck are cynical, but revelatory: across cultures, in many different ways, we embrace rituals at the time of death. And, we bestow them freely upon the deceased, whatever […]
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