In the interview with Terry Gross, Caitlyn Doughy, a motitican, talks about many ideas revolving death, something she is very passionate about. One thing Doughty brings up is the the word romantic during the interview, which seemed like an odd word to be relating death to. I thought the idea of how Doughty considered cremation to be romantic very unusual. I don’t think I know anyone who has pictured death to be romanticized. Doughty believes the idea of the body being purified by fire is romantic, but the setting where it all takes place is not. She also brings up the idea of doing this process yourself, skipping a mortician. This was just mind boggling. People actually do this? Doughty considers caring for the corpse as a powerful thing. She believes this is important because the message – that we to will die someday – is missing from our culture. Doughty goes on to talk about the actually cremation process. She talks about what really goes down once you’re in there, alone with the corpse. She goes on to add to something even more unusual, “…you get covered in dust as you’re working and it was much less”. You may be thinking dust? And by dust Doughty meant ashes, ashes of the corpse. I just couldn’t imagine going to work and leaving with the ashes of a corpse on you. When I think about it I feel like its a violation or something, it seems like a bad thing. It’s almost like a wrong to the family, then again I could totally be wrong. However it’s hard to explain but its like that person body is now on you, it’s just odd to think about. You don’t even know the person and then you just have this connection with them now that they are on you is just strange. Doughty’s philosophy is to educate people on a topic less discussed, death. In the interview, Doughty exhibit to us how she feels towards the subject, “I think that we’ve been so hidden from death in this culture for such a long time that it’s very refreshing and liberating to talk about death in an open, honest manner”. This is something that she is quite passionate about. Doughty wants people to learn about it since they will have to face death at one point or another. She presents death in a way that in hopes will make people not afraid of it. The main point Doughty wants us to take as is that death will happen to you, whether you’re expecting it or not. You will most likely never feel comfortable with it but it’s an important process that we all need to face.

Link to interview:

https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=352765943