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Death is Calling
Thanatology, the science of death. It is a subject many of us wish to ignore until our own deathbed. While I have always been fascinated by the macabre in general, death by itself never really stuck out to me as a particular passion. It wasn’t really until I had my bout with cancer at age 24 when my perspectives really began to shift.
I remember scrolling through TikTok and stumbled on “death care”. It lead me down the rabbit hole to “Death doula”, a person who helps the dying and loved ones of the dying process death and brings psychological comfort to those about the topic of death. I was hooked immediatly. I immediately started looking into everything relating to the process and grief of death. I felt exhilarated. This is really something since ADHD often makes me drop something within weeks of picking it up.
Spiritually, I feel like this has been a strong calling as well. I consider myself polytheistic. One of the deities I follow is Yama, the god of death in Hinduism. I feel like Yama opened his metaphorical door to me shortly after a beloved pet of mine has passed away. I feel like deathcare is one way for me to show admiration for Yama, given the domain he resides over.
However, it somewhat came to a grinding halt as I began to examine what it would take to formally…
