Digital Dying By: Justin Nobel

In Vietnam, grieving the dead once lasted 2 to 3 years and required following strict rituals. At Lac Hong Vien Cemetery, west of Hanoi, people can now pay online to have cemetery workers visit their loved ones graves.

In Vietnam, it is customary for grieving families to bring offerings like fake money, cognac and boiled chicken to the graves of their recently departed loved ones but Lac Hong Vien Cemetery puts a new twist on the old tradition: the ability to order these things online and have cemetery workers place the offerings for you. They then email photos showing the task was done.“The best thing would be for our children to visit our graves,” said a 53 year old woman named Bui Mai Phuong, in a recent AP article. “But if they're too busy, we have to accept that.”

Lac Hong Vien Cemetery is 30 miles west of the capitol, Hanoi, at the end of a road called Highway to Eternity. The cemetery is to have 120,000 graves, though now just 30 people are buried there. It is not cheap, burial land goes for about 8 million dong, or $400, per square meter, according to the AP article, nearly four times the going housing property rates in nearby towns. Then you must by the tombstone, which can cost as much as $48,000.

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Brendan Foster, dying of leukemia, chose as his last wish to feed the homeless. His story inspired sister movements across the country.

“On June 12th 2011, I'm turning 9 and I found out that millions of people don't live to see their 5th birthday,” Rachel Beckwith, of Bellevue, Washington recently wrote on a donation webpage she set up with the aid organization, charity:water. “And why? Because they didn't have access to clean, safe water. I'm asking from everyone I know to donate to my campaign instead of gifts for my birthday.” Rachel's goal was to raise $300 by her birthday, she hit $240. A month later she was killed in a horrible chain-reaction car crash on Highway 90, in Washington. Her mother was driving and her younger sister was in the car too. A semitrailer jackknifed into a logging truck and rear-ended Rachel's car. Her mother and sister were fine but she was put into a coma. Several days later she was taken off life support and died.

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One of the most famous Incan child sacrifice victims was a 10 year-old girl named Tanta Carhua, described by one conquistador as, “beautiful beyond exaggeration.”

Shocking child deaths were all over the news last week: a 6 year-old in Collinsville, Illinois dropped dead on the playground from a brain aneurism, a California mother whose four children died in an apartment fire was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and a fifth grader in the tiny Midwest town of Ridge Farm that had been bullied at school commit suicide. Her death “devastated” the community, said one Ridge Farm resident.

In our culture, the death of a child is often even more devastating than the death of an adult, but across history and across cultures that has not always been the case. In fact, some cultures take particular pride in killing children. Like the Inca's, who ritually sacrificed children in an elaborate mountaintop ceremony known as capacocha.

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by Justin Nobel

More than 200 corpses lay entombed on Mt. Everest. Many people remain in the same position as when they died, almost perfectly preserved because of the cold.

Peter Kinloch, a 28 year old IT specialist, had just summited Mt. Everest and was descending the mountain when he began to go blind. He lost coordination and collapsed. A trio of Nepalese Sherpas spent 12 hours trying to resuscitate him with amphetamines and oxygen but by 2 a.m., bad weather was approaching and the group was still 28,000 feet high on the mountain. They were forced to abandon his body. Months later, Peter's friend Rodney, attempting an Everest summit of his own, spotted it. “I instantly knew it was Peter,” said Rodney. “You could see his face. It was like he was lying on his back taking a rest.”

WHAT TO SAY AT A FRIEND'S FUNERAL

The body was on a dangerous ledge about 1,000 feet below the summit. Unable to reach his friend's remains, Rodney paid his respects and left him there, yet another corpse, one of more than 200 entombed on earth's highest mountain. Steep terrain, hazardous weather, lack of oxygen and the difficulty involved in packing out 200 extra pounds make it nearly impossible to get a body off the mountain. Many people remain in the same position as when they died, almost perfectly preserved because of the cold. For climbers en route to the top, corpses have become part of the scenery. Read the rest of this entry »

by Justin Nobel

Dr. Jack Kevorkian, more than anything else, was an inventor. His Thanatron suicide machine looked like a hastily assembled high school science fair entry.

We all know Jack Kevorkian was a doctor, but few know he was also a painter and a jazz composer; his 1997 CD, “The Kevorkian Suite: A Very Still Life” features Kevorkian on the flute and organ, alongside The Morpheus Quintet. Perhaps more than anything though, Kevorkian, who died last Friday, was an inventor. He masterminded several suicide machines, the first of which, the Thanatron, looked like a hastily assembled high school science fair entry.

The device consisted of a metal frame with three canisters, each containing a syringe and an IV which connected to a patient's arm. The first canister held saline solution, the second a sleep-inducing barbiturate called sodium thiopental and the third, a mix of potassium chloride, which stops the heart and pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxant that prevents spasms during the dying process (the same three drugs are used in lethal injection executions). The process is initiated with the saline solution. The patient then begins the barbiturate drip themselves by throwing a switch, pushing a button or pulling a string. Either a timer or a mechanical device triggered by the patient's falling arm, which becomes sleepy as the drugs take effect, starts the lethal potassium chloride flow. Death usually occurs within two minutes.

HOW TO HANDLE GRIEF AFTER A SUICIDE

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