Explainer
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Death & life
6 min read

Dealing with death – why the fuss?

“No fuss” cremations are getting more popular. Not giving a formal space or process to say goodbye feels like a seismic cultural shift to Jane Cacouris. Part of the How To Die Well series.

Jane Cacouris is a writer and consultant working in international development on environment, poverty and livelihood issues.

A sculpture shows mourning women raising hands and fists to the sky.
The Tragedy of the Sea memorial in Matosinhos, a Portuguese port.
Prilfish, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Widow’s Rip is a notorious swirl of ocean just offshore from Nazaré, a centuries-old fishing village on Portugal’s windy and unpredictable Atlantic coast. Decades ago fishermen used oxen to pull brightly painted boats onto the beach and then rowed into the giant waves. Many lost their lives when the seas were rough. I first visited Nazaré with my Portuguese grandmother as a child and stayed in a fisherwoman’s house with an orange-tiled roof just off the central square. My eyes had to adjust to the gloom every time we went inside as she kept all of the shutters drawn. Even though it was thirty degrees outside, I remember her tanned, crumpled face shrouded in a black shawl that covered her head and shoulders. She wore a black knee length skirt with an array of petticoats and black shoes. As a ten-year-old, I was a little scared. I asked my grandmother when the fisherwoman’s husband had died. “About twenty-five years ago at sea”, she said. She explained it would be a sign that you didn’t love your late husband if you didn’t wear black for the rest of your life.  

Nowadays, although fishing is still a livelihood for some who live there, Nazaré is known for its sweeping beach and touristy promenade of restaurants, bars and stalls selling Portuguese wares. But the widows, now very old ladies, who lost their husbands to the sea all those years ago still potter around the town dressed head to toe in black. An ingrained tradition of how to grieve.

No other event in our life brings us closer to facing questions of mortality and eternity than the death of a loved one.

Grief and how we deal with the loss of a loved one is of course deeply personal and expressed differently depending on so many things; culture, beliefs, personality, life experience, to name a few. But in recent years, there has been a defined shift in British society away from some of the traditions that have historically accompanied death.  

The growing trend for direct or “no fuss” cremations is an example of this shift, with a rise from 3 per cent of all cremations in 2019 to 18 per cent in 2022 according to a life insurance company’s recent report. A traditional cremation includes a service at the crematorium or place of worship beforehand, whereas a direct cremation does not have a service. Instead, the deceased is taken directly to be cremated with no one in attendance, unless witnesses ask to be present. A simple coffin is used, and the timing of the cremation is determined by the funeral director, usually according to availability.  

Why are families choosing to cut out the funeral?  

Sources point to a range of reasons. A matter of choice – perhaps a statement of faith that the afterlife is not about funeral rituals, or conversely, that there is no afterlife, and the body will just decompose organically and be subsumed back into the Earth so why make a fuss? It can be for practical reasons such as cost; traditional funeral services are much more expensive than a simple cremation, estimated to be approximately £2,500 cheaper. A “no fuss” cremation can also reduce the likelihood of family division or arguments over the type of ceremony. Or family living in different locations geographically means a memorial service scheduled for a more convenient time can be organised.  

All these reasons seem perfectly valid. But not giving a formal space or process to say goodbye does feel like a seismic cultural shift, even for the British, known for our ability to keep our feelings under wraps. Practical reasons aside, are we ducking the emotion that inevitably hits us when we lose someone we love? Or perhaps avoiding the difficult questions that come with death? No other event in our life brings us closer to facing questions of mortality and eternity than the death of a loved one.  

On holiday in Nazaré in his youth, my father remembers a fisherman’s death in the house where he was staying. The night before the funeral - with the deceased laid out in the dining room - each of the women in the family took it in turns to sit in the corridor outside, the top skirt of their seven petticoats over their head, wailing in an outpouring of grief so raw that they couldn’t continue for more than a couple of hours. The “wailing process” carried on throughout the night, the role passing from woman to woman until sunrise. Not only was the loss of the fisherman the loss of their beloved, it was also the loss of a working partnership - the women sold the fish that the men brought home – and the loss of the family’s livelihood and income. The wailing was a necessary part of expressing this agony ahead of the funeral service when the rest of the family would come together to support each other.  

There are also intensely reverent traditions observed with death in Portugal, particularly within the Catholic church. The burial or cremation is usually no more than three days after the person has died. When my grandmother passed away a few years ago, her body was laid in an open casket in a room of the Catholic church in the mountain village in rural Portugal where she had lived most of her life. The night before the funeral, a procession of people visited her to pay their last respects, including distant family members, whilst my immediate family sat with her all night. People touched her arm or hand, and sat and chatted to one another. After Mass the following day, her coffin lined with lead was sealed and she was taken to the family Mausoleum to be laid beside my grandfather, along with the remains of around thirty of our relatives dating back to the early 1900s.  

Brazil, where we lived for several years, has many similarities to Portugal in dealing with death. The time between death and burial or cremation is even faster, usually within twenty-four hours. Family and friends rapidly gather, usually together with the body of the loved one in an open casket. Touching and kissing the body and wailing over it is not uncommon. According to a Brazilian friend, “Bebendo do morto” which means “drinking to the dead” is an old custom where family members raise a final glass of Cachaça, a traditional drink, to the deceased in the presence of their body.  

A funeral service is partly about taking a look back at our loved one’s jigsaw of life, at all the pieces that have slotted together to make up their precious and unique time on Earth.

In all these traditions, the funeral service acts as the closure to the first “phase” of grief, and the passing of the deceased into God’s care. The next phase is then the more private continuation of grief for months or years to come.  

Christians believe in life after death based on a conviction that as Jesus rose from the dead, so will we. A funeral service is partly about taking a look back at our loved one’s jigsaw of life, at all the pieces that have slotted together to make up their precious and unique time on Earth. Of course, there are damaged and missing pieces, but Christians believe that the jigsaw will be made whole and perfect in Heaven with Jesus. It is also a chance to give thanks for the the life of a human being wonderfully and fearfully made in the image of God. 

Regardless of the country, the culture or the tradition, the death of someone we love means that our world will never be the same again. It will continue spinning without them and we have to get used to that. The Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible says: 

 “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die”.  

Death is an entire season; not only the end of the existence of a human on Earth who was created and loved by God, but a prolonged period of growth and change for those of us left behind.  

Death deserves us to make a fuss.  

  

Review
Change
Re-enchanting
5 min read

Our top 10 Re-Enchanting conversations

Podcast co-host Tindall picks her favourite episodes.
A man wearing a hat sits at a table talking and raises both hands in front of himself to gesture

Disenchantment, that was the prediction. Well, it was ‘demagification’ (‘entmagisierung’), if we’re being specific. The idea - coined by German sociologist, Max Weber, and largely popularised by Canadian philosopher, Charles Taylor – is that we’d lose our appreciation of the mystical things, the sacred things, and the transcendent things. We’d simply stop trusting them. Instead, we’d have our eyes glued to all that is rational, measurable, and material. The stuff that we make would be the stuff that awes us and meaning would become something that only our minds are given permission to conjure up. We’d be at the top of the pyramid; nothing beyond us, nothing above us, nothing more clever or able than us. This would be us - subject to the process of disenchantment. Thoroughly de-magic-ed. 

That was the prediction.   

And, one could argue that it’s happened - we’re there, just as we were predicted to be. We’ve arrived at disenchantment station with no need for all of that pre-modern baggage.  

Or so it seems.  

I’m increasingly sceptical that we really have scrubbed ourselves clean of the residue of pre-modernity, I’m dubious at the suggestion that there isn’t a hint of enchantment left on us. I wonder if we’re just pretending that’s the case – I also wonder if we’re getting worse and worse at it. I sometimes think that we doth protest too much. That’s my hunch, anyway. Either way, whether this disenchantment we’re living in was inevitable or has become some kind of self-fulfilling prophesy, its presence begs the question: are we happy about it? Or are we longing for re-enchantment? And, if we are craving such, where are we going to find it? Where can we go?   

That’s the premise of Seen and Unseen’s Re-Enchanting podcast, the question written into the rock of each and every episode. We speak with a myriad of guests – those who are influential in all kinds of corners of culture - and wonder whether the Christian story is where re-enchantment might be found. Is it a place we can go when we’re yearning for a story that isn’t so secular? When we’re pondering the meaning of things beyond what we decide the meaning is?  

I’m one of the hosts of this podcast (alongside Justin Brierley), and I really mean it when I say this – these conversations are special. They have so often infused my mind, settled my heart, piqued my curiosity, and shifted my perspective on… well… pretty much everything. They’ve done what they set out to do, they have enchanted me.  

This year, we hit fifty episodes. To celebrate, I’d like to break down my top ten most re-enchanting conversations from 2024.  

 

Joshua Luke Smith is at number ten. This conversation - with the poet, songwriter, storyteller, podcaster – reminded me of the art of noticing. It reminded me of the importance in seeing my life, as over-familiar as I am with it, as the backdrop to some truly miraculous things. I’ll never again kid myself into thinking that the mundane isn’t a mighty space.  

Go to episode

 

In at number nine is the creative force of nature, Jessica Oyelowo. As a singer, songwriter, actor, producer and documentary maker, Jessica had a lot to say on what it’s like to believe in a God who wishes to get his work done through you.  

Go to episode

 

I’ve always admired Krish Kandiah, so to get him onto Re-Enchanting was a little bit of an honour. His thing is hospitality – dedicating his life to hosting vulnerable children, asylum seekers, and people he vehemently disagrees with. This conversation is a culture wars antidote.  

Go to episode.

 

I had an odd experience with this episode. As I was actually recording this episode, I was already looking forward to listening to it. Which I have, multiple times. Professor Iain McGilchrist is a psychologist and philosopher and well worth an hour (or seven, if you listen to it as much as I have) of your time.  

Go to episode.

 

Ah, Elizabeth Oldfield. Mockingbird recently called her ‘your spiritual but not religious college roommate who keeps pushing Sally Rooney books on you and won’t get the hint.’ And if that doesn’t sell this episode to you, I don’t know what will. I’m not sure how to sum up this conversation, other than to say that it felt like medicine.  

Go to episode

 

I cried while recording this episode. It was so moving it made me cry in front of the world-renowned mega-big-deal scientist, Francis Collins. It’s not my finest moment, professionally speaking. But who can blame me? This was one of the most profound conversations I’ve ever had.  

Go to episode

 

Once or twice, I’ve left an episode recording audibly thanking God for making the person with whom I had just spoken. This was one of those times, Lisa Fields is thank-the-actual-Lord-worthy.  

Go to episode.

 

And we’re in the top three. Up in third place is the notorious Rory Stewart: centrists rejoice! This episode actually didn’t involve me; I was sitting behind the camera, watching on in awe. Rory speaks with rev. Jonathan Aitken about their experiences with prisons (one as the Prisons Minister and one as a prisoner – Jonathan’s line), the current state of Westminster, and the role of faith in politics.  

Go to episode.

 

In second place, but holding a particularly special place in my heart, is Claire Gilbert. Claire points us to the wonder of medieval mystic, Julian of Norwich. Who, in turn, points us to the wonder of God. The result was falling deeper in love with all three of them. Claire, and her beloved Julian, are a balm to the weary soul.  

Go to episode.

 

This had to be number one. There was no question. Not a hint of deliberation. This conversation had me glowing for days, it was that good. Martin Shaw, renowned mythologist, wilderness devotee, lover of ‘the Galilean druid’, and, I think, the most extraordinary man I’ve ever met. This conversation – his stories and his thoughts – had me mesmerised. And, considering the amount of people who have spoken to me about this episode since, I don’t think I’m the only one.  

Go to episode.

 

I defy you to listen to any one of these conversation and not consider yourself re-enchanted. Go on, I dare you.  

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