09.21.2015 | Anonymous as told to Barbara Darius
Even today, I saw a new patient today that lives in one of these poor areas, I asked, I said, “Do you all have any kind of final arrangements made?” “Like what do you mean?” “Like funeral home, that sort of thing.” “Oh we aren’t even thinking about that right now, I don’t want to think about that.” I said “okay, I’m just going to put out there something you want to think about.”
They’re in denial. “We’re not trying to think about that right now. I don’t want to talk about that because I think it’ll bring death sooner.” I’m just like okay. Especially with our people. (Meaning Black people) I met a lady yesterday who had all her stuff down to the T.
It’s just a lack of knowledge. People just either they don’t know, a lot of them don’t know. They really just don’t know. They’re ignorant to what all of this entails.
“My grandmother going to die faster”. That’s what her thought process was. That’s really what a lot of their thought process is versus you got the ones who are just very logical, okay I know what’s going to happen. I even try to explain to them at the time of death, the last thing you want to be thinking about is what funeral home are we going to use.
That’s why I try to coach them into thinking about getting a funeral home because that can be a nightmare like you don’t have that picked out and they just passed and we’re still laying … Yeah. This patient is laying here, rigor (Rigor mortis – Rigor mortis (Latin: rigor “stiffness”, mortis“of death”) is one of the recognizable signs of death, caused by chemical changes in the muscles after death, causing the limbs of the corpse to stiffen after death – Wikipedia) is starting to set in and you don’t have a funeral home picked out. I’m trying to put this in their head like I’m not trying to put death on your grandmother or your mom but you are not going to be in the right set of mind when she leaves here.
Yes, they don’t like to have the conversation. Even after my dad passed, the conversation me and my mom had it was so matter of fact like okay, what do you want, we’re going to talk about this. She went ahead and paid for her whole burial plot. I mean all that’s done. It makes life so much easier. These patients, these families, it’s insane. We have just got to get people educated on this.
Dying & Death Talk 