I first encountered Caitlin Doughty while watching Ted
Talks. Her talk, A burial practice that nourishes the planet, explores different
ideas for burial that don’t pollute the environment with toxic, cancer-causing
formaldehyde. It was absolutely fascinating, so when I learned that she was a
published author with three books, I wasted no time getting my hands on
them. 
In Smoke Gets in Your
Eyes, Doughty tells the story of her journey into the funeral industry,
from crematory assistant, then mortuary school, to founder of the death
acceptance collective The Order of the Good Death. The book opens with her
first day as a crematory assistant, flashes back to her first encounter with
death, and goes over frank and often graphic descriptions of what happens to
bodies at the funeral home and beyond. It’s definitely not a book for the faint
of heart, but far from being all sadness, horror and gore, this book is also
hilarious, candid, and empowering. Doughty challenges the idea of death
avoidance that has permeated our society’s death rituals in the last hundred
years with the rise of the multimillion-dollar funeral industry. She challenges
the reader to ask themselves what do you want to happen to your body when you
die? 
Her next two books are equally enjoyable and fascinating. In
From Here To Eternity, Doughty
explores different current cultural death rituals. From Zoroastrian sky
burials, to Bolivian natitas, and Japanese kotsuage ceremonies, there is an
immense diversity on how humans care for the dead. In Will My Cat Eat My
Eyeballs?, Doughty answers questions children have posed about death such
as can Grandma have a Viking funeral?, or what would happen if you swallowed a
bag of popcorn before you died and were cremated?
Death is inevitable. No matter how much we might not want
to, we will all, eventually, die. It is an unchangeable and, at times,
terrifying truth. It certainly terrified me, but after reading Dougthy’s three
books, death feels less frightening and more like just another part of being
human. It is not something I’m looking forward to but it is not something I
avoid talking about. I most definitely recommend these fascinating, hilarious,
and poignant books to those of a curious mind and a brave heart.
