There used to be a time when death was everywhere about us, inescapable, back when we had higher infant mortality and a lower life expectancy, and before vaccines, when diseases would ravage populations. Funerals happened in people's houses, families sat with and prepared their loved one's corpses; they understood the feel of death, and how it affected all the senses. But with advancements in science and medicine, we've almost been able to shunt death off to an attic, making us believe that we can cheat death, at least for a very long time, and that death is somehow a failure. In On Death, Sandra Martin explores our complicating and changing relationship with death. From our fear of death and how we seek more invasive ways to get around it, to how medical assistance in dying has given us both the reality and illusion of control, to the importance of rituals for how we grieve.
