Interview with Alan Kemp: Overview of Death, Dying, and Bereavement

Finished. Pushing Daisies. Kicked the Bucket. These are all common terms for death in which we gloss over the severity of our inevitable end. We’ve all heard these terms and know what death is, but the real question is, how do we cope with it?

For many people, death is not the end but rather the beginning of the new chapter. Whether that be the afterlife or reincarnation, there is always an answer for death with religion. Sociology Professor Alan Kemp has a couple answers for this. “We cope with death by wrapping ourselves in our culture and religious beliefs. It is a tactic we use in order to make death less threatening and scary.”

As mentioned in my Mystic Sanctuary Review, there are many holidays that celebrate death rather than vilify it. Holidays like Dia de los Muertes and Samhain both rejoice the opportunity to reconnect with past loved ones. Kemp notes how Mexican natives would decorate ofrendas or altars with things their family members used to love in life. In this way, their families reanimate for one day.

Earnest Becker’s work called “Denial of Death” mentions the symbolism in death embedded in Eastern Mediterranean cults. “The hero was the man who could go into the spirit world, the world of the dead, and return alive. He had his descendants in the mystery cults of the Eastern Mediterranean, which were cults of death and resurrection. The divine hero of each of these cults was one who had come back from the dead.”

Christianity even references resurrection motifs often seen in other religious contexts, with Jesus Christ being rebirthed three days after his death. Another example would be being “born-again,” having redeemed one’s character from a life of sin. Even religions like Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism all believe in reincarnation—or the belief that people will live multiple lifetimes.

For American Halloween, the culture is to mock death rather than embrace it. In movies like “Scream,” “Halloween,” “Texas Chainsaw,” death always comes as a punishment but usually acted out by cheesy effects and lots of fake blood. Kemp describes this tactic as “making something scary into something not so scary. We make fun of death; therefore, we are no longer afraid of death.”

But for some people, it is something to fear, who don’t know what happens in the afterlife—or whether there even is one—the fear comes from the unknown. “We’re the same as all animals, that is, we want to survive. The one difference is that we have consciousness, so we have awareness that we are going to die. And that awareness, whether you acknowledge it or not, scares the bejeezus out of us.”

For many of these belief systems become a need to stay connected to the ones we love. Whether a student has a belief system or not, people’s need to cope with friends or family dying is usually to push through their own fear of death.

 “With that knowledge comes appreciation from that potential for death, makes it possible for people to deal with, otherwise missing out on some of the deep experiences. Even if it feels uncomfortable, I say you just gotta go for it anyway. See if you can push your own fear of death and interact with that person. Because you have a good chance to have a good relationship with that person, at a time where they are the most vulnerable.”