Death, and our perceptions of death

All throughout my life, my parents have shielded me from death: when our neighbor collapsed from heart failure, I was taken to the basement where I wouldn't be able to see the paramedics arrive. The same happened for the elderly woman living above us - when she passed from cancer, I was taken to my aunt's house while my parents dealt with the 'situation.' I was always never allowed to attend the funeral - my parents always felt that it was inappropriate for children to attend. However, when it came time when my uncle, a once lively man, passed away from cancer at 35, I was again shielded from death. Even though I was 16 then, I was not allowed to attend the funeral: my parents insisted I stay in school while they took time off from their jobs to travel to Canada where he lived. As a result, I always viewed death and loss as foreign to me - I waited for my mother to come home, not knowing how she would respond to the death of her brother. I expected to see her depressed, or grieving, but there was no sign of it. Both my parents came home, and resumed their daily lives like nothing happened.

Confused, I spend the next few years sporadically asking, and inquiring about the relationship between my mother and uncle. Why the apathetic repsonse? Were they simply not close? What I found was that she, and presumably the rest of my family, viewed death as a very different event than simply the end-all: where a life is lost forever. She believed that my uncle was still with her, and watching over her. This summer, I even found out that she was keeping a Jasmine plant, grown from cuttings taken from my uncle's home. She told me that it keeps her in touch with my uncle. When I asked whether she meant she can see or hear her, she responded "of course!" To her, my uncle never really left. She explained that, when she was growing up in Burma, death (as Professor Aguas explained) was not kept a secret, or away from the community: when a neighbor died, their home was open to the entire community - she said that neighborhood kids would attend the funerals, weaving in and out of the crowds. Of course, it was stressful when a loved one died, but everyone accepted it as a part of life. My mother also mentioned her own death, and how she was making arrangements in preparation for it.

I will admit that I still do not understand my mom's views of death, or the grieving process (having never been as deeply exposed to it) however, I would tend to agree that loss is viewed very differently in Asian culture. Yes she admitted that she missed her brother, but seemed to accept the loss without a pronounced grieving process. Maybe that is the difference, as it was said in class, between how the western world views death, and how the eastern one does - rather than it being a negative experience, it is rather celebrated as a person's life moving on.