Our Director Beth French reviews a new book on grief: Lonely Planet’s Guide to Death, Grief and Rebirth.

I am fascinated by the fact that grief and death are such taboo subjects in the UK. Despite it being an inevitability for everyone who is born, we don’t like talking about dying. When you do talk about death or grief, the sense you get is that others feel it is contagious, and that talking with you about those subjects might somehow bring death to their own door.

At Let’s Talk About Loss, we are passionate about breaking down some of the stigma around grief and death, and through our work we try to create safe spaces to talk about these topics. When the Lonely Planet team reached out to let us know about their new book, ‘Lonely Planet’s Guide to Death, Grief and Rebirth: How global grieving customs can help us live (and die) well’, I was intrigued and keen to find out more about the different ways cultures across the world grieve.

Death is life’s one certainty, and hiding from it only amplifies the pain when people eventually encounter this unavoidable reality

The book is split into four sections: Celebrating, Commemorating, Mourning and Offering. It touches on the many different ways of grieving, from the famous Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead) in Mexico to dancing at jazz funerals in New Orleans, where mourners “dance in defiance of death”.

The author, Anita Isalska, talks about her own grief in the introduction, and says the book concept was born from “that search for the languages of loss”. Throughout the book, her commentary on different cultural practices offers helpful insight. She remarks on how the formalised grieving schedule in Chinese culture might seem strange, but can “give structure to a process that may otherwise be overwhelming” and how the Buddhist death philosophy and belief in reincarnation “offers comfort for mourners. Death is not an ending, because every death is also a rebirth”.

There is so much we can learn from the grieving customs around the world. Throughout the book there are countless examples of celebrations centred around someone’s death, and Isalska notes that while festivals often involve calling on ancestors for blessings, the “event itself is also the blessing”. Ancient customs and traditions bring families together “in festivals that are much about emotional bonding and support in the here-and-now as they are an occasion for remembering the departed”. 

Did you know:

• Less than 30% of South Koreans opt for burials, as with limited burial space, the government set a law requiring families to exhume remains from graveyards after 60 years. Due to this law, cremations increased and a fashion for cremation beads, or death beads, was born: “Touching death beads can provide a comforting focus, and create a moment of closeness and relief”. 
• Similarly, Taiwan’s vertical cemetery, True Dragon Tower, is a 20-storey high rise that will eventually accommodate 400,000 funeral urns. In a growing population, this is the most practical solution to a space problem. 
• In Maori culture, the body of the deceased is taken to the wharenui, a meeting house in the marae, a community gathering place: “When people mourn together in the marae, a single death becomes the entire community’s loss, which consoles the bereaved and reduces their isolation”.
• In the section on Mourning, Isalska notes that “Grief is often described as the feeling of losing a limb”. She goes on to describe a practice that used to happen in New Guinea (but is now banned) of finger amputation – where (mostly) women would remove a finger every time there was a loss in the family. It’s a shocking idea but its brutality has a lot to say about how grief makes us feel.

This is a fantastic book and I’d highly recommend it for young grievers who want to learn more about death and grief customs in different cultures. Isalska is a brilliant commentator, offering a lot of wisdom of her own throughout the book and the way she describes the traditions. 

The overwhelming lesson from the book is that however a death is marked, the most important thing is the wellbeing of those left behind, and something that brings the community together is vital. “Death is life’s one certainty, and hiding from it only amplifies the pain when people eventually encounter this unavoidable reality”.

At Let’s Talk About Loss, we’re passionate about getting everyone talking about grief and death. If you’d like to join one of our meet ups, click here to find your local one: MEET UP

You can purchase a copy of the Lonely Planet guide here. All images from the Lonely Planet website.