By Juliane Uhl
For five years, she has worked with coffins, urns, cremation culture, funeral practices and the social handling of death. She asks whether this makes her an expert, and challenges the assumption that only physicians, lawyers, philosophers, clergy or funeral directors may speak about death.
Death concerns everyone. We will die, and we will also have to say goodbye to grandparents, parents and sometimes children. Because of that, Uhl argues, everyone should know more about death than the media’s usual mixture of horror, suffering and mistrust of service providers.
She compares funeral decisions with buying a car: people research a vehicle before spending money, but often make funeral decisions in an acute state of grief without knowledge or preparation. A funeral is not only a cost factor; it is a moment that can be shaped.
Uhl encourages readers to imagine what a good farewell could look like: candles, balloons, a painted coffin, meaningful objects, or other gestures within the legal framework of burial law. She sees the possibility of reclaiming part of death culture that society handed over long ago to undertakers and churches.
For her, a living culture of the dead and of mourning is connected to a humane culture for the sick and dying. The way we accompany the dead continues the way we make space for vulnerable people in life.
