Reading Time: 6 minutes After my son’s suicide, I was unprepared for the religious toxicity spewed my way. At first, I dodged it as uselessly as Newman with the frilly dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. But I learned quickly, and unlike Newman, I made it out alive. By setting boundaries in proportion to the offense, my mind could focus on […]
Death & Dying
Grappling with the difficult questions of death and dying from a secular, nonreligious point of view.
Posted inDeath & Dying
Dilemmas in suicide’s aftermath: How far to dig for the irrational why?
Reading Time: 4 minutes This is a heavier column than usual, so I’m opening with a content warning. If you are having suicidal thoughts, please reach out to someone you trust, establish care with a therapist, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800-273-8255), or go to your nearest emergency room. Please stick around. We need you. This column is […]
Posted inDeath & Dying
Dilemmas in suicide’s aftermath: To disclose or not to disclose?
Reading Time: 4 minutes In the days and weeks after my son Josh took his life, I was faced with several painful predicaments. How do I break the news, to family, friends, coworkers, neighbors? How deeply do I dig for the irrational why, in cellphone, laptop, autopsy report? How do I handle religious aggression and other boundary violations? How […]
Posted inDeath & Dying
The incomplete picture of man
Reading Time: 2 minutes We often paint a picture of others inside our head, just as they do of us. Is that picture complete, or are we blinded by our own judgments?
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Evangelist’s son found guilty for leaving flowers on fiancée’s grave
Reading Time: 4 minutes On Thursday, a judge found Winchester (Winston) Hagans guilty of criminal littering. The Alabama man had desecrated a gravesite, and for that, he was fined $50 for littering and another $250 by the court. Ruining someone’s gravesite sounds horrible. That penalty even seems fairly mild. But when you hear the details of the story, you’ll […]
Posted inDeath & Dying
Will I go gentle?
Reading Time: 9 minutes OnlySky · Will I go gentle? | Dale McGowan If you haven’t visited The Death Clock, you really must. Enter your date of birth, height, weight and Body Mass Index, and the Death Clock spits out the day and date on which you’ll hear the galloping hooves of the pale horse. Mine is Tuesday, December […]
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Mourning and remembrance without an afterlife safety net
Reading Time: 6 minutes I’m afraid of forgetting. Terrified, even. There’s a reason for my athazagoraphobia. With the unspoken rule of silence surrounding my mother’s death when I was 17, I can no longer remember her voice. The voice of the person who was central to my formative years. That’s tragic. Now that I’m 53, I’m facing the second […]
Posted inDeath & Dying
Clear eyes, heavy hearts in ‘A Matter of Death and Life’
Reading Time: 3 minutes Walk the “grief and loss” section of a bookstore, and you’re waist deep in woo. “Find comfort in knowing your loved one is in a place of no tears and no pain.” “Deepen your relationship with God as you mourn.” As a person who once grieved religiously, I’ve learned this emphasis on faith is a […]
Posted inFilm/TV
‘Memento Mori’: To live with the prospect of death (Strange New Worlds)
Reading Time: 9 minutes Like any self-respecting Trekkie, I learned the basics of gunpower from Star Trek: The Original Series. One of TOS‘s most memorable scenes comes from “Arena” (Season 1, Episode 18), when Captain Kirk, trapped on a planet with minimal resources, has to use his wits to survive an encounter with a brutish reptilian species called the […]
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Death and the absent dancers
Reading Time: 5 minutes Fifteen years ago today, Reverend Jerry Falwell, Sr. went to his reward. Many of those who did not like Falwell were happy that he got this reward, while those who loved him were very, very sad. This is strange. At the time, many of his fellow religious believers shook stern fingers at the rest of […]