Death’s Summer Coat summary

Death is a difficult subject. If forced to think about death, people tend to envision an idealized deathbed scenario: they will die painlessly, in their sleep, surrounded by the people they love. Such ideal visions, however, differ from the age-old concept of a “good death.”

People started striving for a “good death” in the eighth century BC, when hunter-gatherer societies gave way to agriculture and more communal ways of living.

You might think that a coffin burial provides a decent amount of security. After all, one is sealed in a box and safely buried in the ground. There was a time, however, when this was far from a final resting place.

In the nineteenth century, more and more people started studying the medical sciences, and teachers of anatomy suddenly needed more cadavers for their students to dissect.

What defines death? Is it when your heart stops? Or is it when brain function stops? These days, science is constantly redefining the terms of death.

In particular, modern medicine has made it commonplace to artificially prolong one’s life.

Today, even if there is an open-casket funeral, most people will pay their respects by keeping a polite distance from the corpse. The funerary ceremonies of early societies, in contrast, were much more hands-on.

Some early cultures even practiced necrophagy, the ritualized eating of the deceased.

Memento mori is an old Latin phrase that means, "Remember you will die." It continues to remind people today that they are not immortal, but in nineteenth-century Victorian England it led to a whole new industry: memento mori photographs.

These are photos that portray a recently deceased loved one in a life-like posture and everyday setting, often propped up next to living family members.

Have you ever been to someone’s funeral and thought, “Wow, I wish they could be here to see this amazing turn out.” Well, you’re not alone. Indeed, today’s growing trends are making the departed the veritable life of the party.

Or at least that’s the idea behind some eccentric new ceremonies, such as life reenactment funerals.