Remember you must die

Today I gave an interview to Ph.D. candidate and sociologist Heidi Nicholls, who is researching death and grief work for a project with the Race, Religion and Democracy Lab at UVA. She was full of expansive, exploratory questions, and the interview was a generous opportunity to reflect on what I’ve come to “know” about death through chaplaincy and end-of-life doula experiences.

Short answer: not much.

Better answer: not much, but being secure in “not-knowing” can be quite powerful in the face of unanswerable questions.

During the interview, I mentioned the phrase memento mori, which is Latin for “remember you must die.” The idea has a storied history, and Heidi eventually asked what it means to me personally. I offered some thoughts on humility, humanity, fragility, the absence of guarantees, and our ultimate lack of control. More succinctly: to remember I must die is to remember that I live.

This can be transformative thinking:

It can be a call to action and source of clarity.

It can become a path to empathy, like tying a string on the finger of our own humanity.

It can connect us to the common good—and to the immense and interconnected ecology of life.

It can point to a Beyond, or at least ask questions about it.

Exploring these ideas can seem radical. We live in a culture where mainstream attitudes towards death and grief are often fearful. Death taboos are as long and storied as the phrase memento mori. What’s more, dying increasingly happens in institutions vs. inside homes, and our mourning rituals have changed to encompass this—all of which disconnects us from intimate encounters with death. In this context, memento mori can be stressful or empowering (and possibly both), depending on your worldview, your spirituality, your situation, and your life story.

You aren’t alone if the whole topic of death feels icky to you. Nor are you weird if you want to explore it. A recent study classified death attitudes according to three categories: death experts (who believe they understand death, whether through a religious or an atheist frame), death deniers (who would rather not, thank you very much), and death investigators (who are in a seeking mode). Other theorists argue that there is just one category—death anxiety, with which the experts, the deniers, and the seekers are all coping in their particular ways.

Although I can offer ideas, it isn’t ultimately my place to tell you how to remember you must die, what you should believe or feel about death, or whether to go deeper with this. I trust and defer to your wisdom and discernment on such matters, always.

That being said, I offer you memento mori as something to consider while you move through the daily grind.

Remember you must die. Remember, you are alive!

🖤

JLP

P.S. For you seekers out there, here is a good place for death education. I also trust Alua Arthur, Alica Forneret, and Sarah Farr, and you can follow me at @deathpositivecharlottesville on IG.