Archive for October, 2009

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Coming to Terms with Fatal Disease: Talking with your Doctor

Friday, October 30th, 2009

The Doctor by Luke Fildes

The Doctor by Luke Fildes

If you do not die suddenly from an accident, heart attack or stroke, chances are you will die a slow death from disease or simply from aging. Unfortunately, in the latter case, doctors are well trained in every possible aspect of saving a life, but little on how to treat death and dying. So, if you are diagnosed with a fatal or chronic condition, how do you talk with your doctor effectively?

When you are diagnosed with a fatal illness or chronic condition, try to discover as much as possible about the medical facts about your condition. Most doctors are overworked, and many lack the skills to offer counseling for the emotional aspects of dealing with your illness. But, most doctors can provide facts about your condition. Additionally, you can use other resources, as noted below, to learn more about how to deal with your condition emotionally.

The following questions were gathered from Dr. Daniel R. Tobin’s book, Peaceful Dying, a step-by-step guide to preserving dignity, your choices and your inner peace in death and dying. These questions were designed to get as much information from your doctor about your condition as possible:

  • What are my treatment options?
  • What is my prognosis?
  • How long do you think I have to live? (while there is no surefire way for a doctor to predicit how long you’ll live, you can get a general idea of the life span of most people at your stage of disease)
  • What are the side effects of the treatments you are suggesting?
  • How much time do I have to make up my mind about which treatments to use? How will that time affect my treatment?
  • What treatments exist outside those offered by traditional Western medicine and where can I research such alternatives? (most doctors do not know much about alternatives, so you may have to search a little further to find answers to this questions)

Some tools you can use to find more answers include:

  • Get a second opinion and answers to your questions above.
  • Read more about your disease in books (written within the past five to ten years for the most updated information).
  • Join support groups for patients with your disease, and encourage your family members to do the same.
  • Surf the Internet for more information about your disease and treatments for that disease.
  • Seek counseling if needed with a specialist who understands grief, death and dying. This counseling can be invaluable for both you and your family.

When you are diagnosed with a fatal or chronic disease initially, the information you gather may be far different than information available to you as your disease progresses. Be sure to stay on top of new developments in your disease, as you never know when something might occur that either could ease your suffering or prolong your life.

In other words, while your doctor may be the best expert in his field, he may not know all the answers to your particular situation. You are responsible for your life and your death in many cases. So, take charge and live your life with dignity.

On a final note, sometimes diseases come on quickly and can incapacitate you without warning. Therefore, it might be wise to share this information with your family so that sharing in the responsibility becomes a family affair. When family members understand how to recognize and help treat H1N1, for instance, that knowledge may help to save a family member’s life.

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Tips for Taking Care of Prescriptions for Elderly

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Pills that are different colors can be helpful in organizing medications.

Pills that are different colors can be helpful in organizing medications.

Are you helping to take care of an elderly person? Many older people must take several different prescription and nonprescription drugs every day. Because these drugs often are taken during different times of the day, it can become easy for an elderly person (or even a stressed younger person) to become confused about which medication to take at what time.

This confusion can create a situation where an individual may skip a dose or overdose on a particular drug. The following tips can help alleviate some of these issues and more, and can help your loved one manage his or her medications as easily as possible.

  1. Make a list of all medications, including over-the-counter drugs, that the person is taking and keep it up to date. This list is useful both for the patient and for that patient’s doctor.
  2. Keep a medication schedule in the form of a calendar and check off each dose as it is taken.
  3. If the person has trouble remembering to take medications, try associating doses with specific times of day, such as breakfast, lunch and dinner, or waking up or before going to bed.
  4. Use a divided container to prepare a person’s doses for an upcoming week. Containers designed for this purpose are inexpensive (often free) and found at local drugstores.
  5. Be sure that the person takes his or her medications as prescribed. For instance, some medications must be taken between meals, and others must be taken with food or before eating. See #3 to help with association for these medications.
  6. If the patient has problems digesting certain drugs, ask the doctor or pharmacist if other forms are available. In other words, a pill may be hard to swallow, but that pill may be available in liquid, too.
  7. Use containers with easy-open lids rather than child-resistant lids to ease opening the bottle for someone who might suffer from arthritis. These easy-open lids are perfectly appropriate when children no longer reside in the house.
  8. Never transfer drugs from one container to another unless that second container has been labeled appropriately.
  9. When you pick up medicine from the pharmacy, read the label to make sure you understand the dosage required and when that medicine should be taken. If you have questions, it’s easier to ask when you receive the medication than to call later.
  10. Avoid keeping medicines on a bedside table. More than one overdose has been attributed to patients taking drugs too often when he or she is not fully awake. Additionally, the possibility of taking the wrong medication increases in this situation.
  11. Keep medications up to date. If a medication is to be renewed, be sure to let the doctor or pharmacist know about a week before the expiration on the current bottle. This way, you can rest assured that the medication can be continued without a lapse due to holidays, running out at night, etc.
  12. Dispose of all unused and expired prescriptions properly. Unfortunately, disposing of pills and medicines down the drain can increase the chances that local water supplies become contaminated. Keep the medications in the bottles with lids on and dispose of the bottles in the trash. This latter solution is not the best one, but until these bottles and their medications can be disposed of in an environmentally-safe way, people have little choice in how to eliminate the medicines from the household.
  13. Make sure that all pills are accounted for and that the patient is 1) not taking medications that belong to others, and 2) that the patient is not giving away medications.

One way to help cut down on the number of prescriptions that a person might be taking is to ask the doctor or pharmacist if the medication can be combined. For instance, why take a cough medicine and a decongestant when both can be combined and purchased in one package? This type of packaging may save money as well as time, space and confusion.

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Disease Resugence: What it Means

Monday, October 26th, 2009
Most forms of anthrax, which is carried by animals and humans, are highly lethal.

Most forms of anthrax, which is carried by animals and humans, are highly lethal.

A community along the Ivory Coast in Africa suffered from repeated outbreaks of a human respiratory virus from 1999 to 2006. Approximately 92 percent of residents in that area manifested symptoms, and the fatality rate was 20 percent. Although you might think that humans transferred this virus, you would be wrong. The carriers were among a group of chimpanzees.

Zoonoses are diseases that animals transmit to humans, or vice versa. While transference from chimpanzees to humans seems logical, considering the similarities in genetic makeup between the two species, many diseases are making the jump to humans from more distantly-related species. Think rabies, toxoplasmosis, bird flu, anthrax and plague, and you open a Pandora’s box of disease transmission possibilities that includes bats, cats, dogs, chickens, cows and rodents.

Animal populations can ‘hide’ zoonotic diseases even as human populations seek to eradicate them from their own communities. As human populations increase in size, as climate change alters environments, and as diseases mutate so that current medicines no longer are effective, people become vulnerable to new infections.

Infection is not required to trigger new outbreaks, however. According to the book, Resurgent Diseases: Opposing Viewpoints:

Rickets, for example, is seen in children who have a deficiency of vitamin D. A 2006 outbreak of fifty-nine cases in Oakland, California, was attributed to a set of factors: the babies had been breastfed (breast milk does not contain vitamin D) and the babies had darker skin that absorbed less sunlight (sun exposure is a source of vitamin D). Because of the benefits of breastfeeding, rates of formula feeding (formula has vitamin D) are dropping, and American life is happening indoors more often than out – these two factors both contribute to the rise of a disease the health care industry had nearly eradicated in the 1930s. When rickets was prevalent, parents knew how to ward it off (oftentimes by administering daily spoonfuls of cod liver oil). After rickets vanished from popular awareness, ordinary people forgot how to protect themselves.

In an environment where diseases have mutated to survive, how can you protect yourself from various new diseases and strains of those diseases with relative peace of mind? One way to protect yourself and your family from pathogenic diseases is to learn as much as you can about how to stay healthy in the first place. Some tips include:

  • Maintaining a weight that is healthy for your level of activity, lifestyle, body composition and height.
  • Eating a balanced diet that can help you to lose weight, to gain weight or to maintain a healthy weight.
  • By drinking at least eight cups (not glasses – cups!) of water per day without additives such as caffeine, teas or other ingredients to make that water “taste better.”
  • Engage in physical activity daily, with exercises that increase your heart rate at least three times per week (aerobics such as fast walking, running, bicycling, dancing, etc.). First, talk with your doctor about what you plan to do so he or she can approve of those activities if you have certain limitations such as muscle, bone or heart diseases).
  • Practice safe sex so that you do not weaken your immune system with diseases such as HIV/AIDS or other bacterial, fungal, viral, parasitic or protozoan infections.
  • Use everything in moderation (such as alcohol), and learn more about what your body can tolerate as you age.
  • Practice safety-first routines, such as awareness of your surroundings. This awareness can help you to avoid injury that may alter your lifestyle and your life (or end it altogether!).

Another way to learn more about how diseases can affect you is to learn more about what is happening to other human populations and communities worldwide. One way to stay on top of news about diseases and ‘cures’ is to visit the Centers for Disease Control Web site (CDC) or subscribe to their RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed. The CDC maintains an “encyclopedia” of all known diseases and reports on new strains when discovered.

The book, Resurgent Diseases: Opposing Viewpoints, also provides information that you can use to either defeat your fears or to help understand why not all people agree with vaccines, climate change as a factor in spreading diseases and more scenarios. This book is small, easy to read, and provides information that can help you stay healthy.

You, after all, are part of a community where, when one person becomes sick, then that sickness can affect an entire neighborhood. The new mantra at work has become, “If you’re sick, stay home!” And, that mantra exists for good reason, especially during flu season.

But, community leaders who are not in touch with a community and who fail to report the presence of a deadly and infectious disease also can be seen as responsible for helping to spread disease. This community, today, has enlarged to include people who blog and use social media. For instance, an entire community in Indiana refused to vaccinate their children for measles in 2005, for fear that the vaccine caused autism. An outbreak of measles occurred among children in that community, requiring hospitalization for those children, when a 17-year-old who had not been vaccinated, and who incubated measles upon a return trip from Romania, creating the largest documented outbreak of measles in the United States since 1996.

For those of you who have not experienced the measles, this is a highly infectious, acute viral disease that can cause rash, fever, diarrhea, pneumonia, encephalitis, and death.

Where is the line drawn when it comes to using help if you believe that help will harm your child or your community? Who are you harming by refusing that help? How can you learn to trust that help? Do you trust the news media, your doctor or the government, or do you learn all you can so you can make rational decisions yourself?

Those decisions are yours to make, and you may need to increase those efforts over the years, as more diseases evolve that may resist current medicines.

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Baxter’s Death Brings Attention to Therapy Dogs

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

Have you heard about dogs who provide comfort to patients in a hospice or hospital? Baxter, a dog who joined a hospice program with his owners about four years ago, died this past week. His death brings attention to how dogs can provide comfort to those who are engaged with the transition from life to death.

The story begins when Baxter’s owners decided to volunteer at the local hospice. They brought Baxter along for the orientation, and that’s when the owners learned about dog training and certification through Therapy Dogs International. Baxter was game, and – according to his owners -  it was as though Baxter made the decision on his own to pass the training and certification at TDI well before he attended the course.

Therapy dogs offer unconditional love, non-judgment and accepting attention to humans. Dogs with a special talent for entertaining, comforting, or teaching show affinity for therapy work. In general, a therapy dog needs to be even-tempered and good natured, friendly and curious, well socialized and able to work with a variety of people. But there are two sides to this story.

The ideal therapy dog handler is a warm, caring, responsible person who is disability-aware and enjoys social interaction. If you are a friendly, giving person who loves your dog and would like to share him, as well as your time and talents, with others, therapy dog work may be for you. There are significant benefits to joining an existing, organized, recognized therapy dog organization. A quick search of the Internet may help you locate one in your area.

Unfortunately, Baxter was a geriatric dog, or an ‘elder’ when he became certified. Therefore, he had only four years to provide comfort to many patients, young and old at the San Diego Hospice and The Institute for Palliative Medicine and Palomar Pomerado Hospital in San Diego, California, before he died. But, his lessons live on to help educate people who own and love their dogs…he provides inspiration to those who might wonder if their pets are appropriate helpers for those who need their comfort.

If you are interested in becoming involved with Therapy Dogs International, visit their Web site to learn more about their processes. TDI was founded in 1976 in new Jersey and it is a non-profit organization. If you do not own a dog, perhaps you can donate to their cause if their mission moves you to do so.

You also can visit Baxter’s Web site or his blog to learn more about this special dog. Baxter lived to be nineteen years and six months old, and he provided a much-needed and welcome comfort to many people in his old age and an inspiration to anyone to help others who need comfort.

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Heat-Related Deaths and Illnesses

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
Do not labor outside during the middle of a hot day.

Do not labor outside during the middle of a hot day.

Although it’s coming on winter in the northern hemisphere, places such as Australia, South America and Africa are heading into summer. A few days ago, we offered an article about how deadly summer heat can be for those who live alone or who lose power for air conditioning. But, other than dehydration, how do people die from heat?

A few heat-related ailments, some deadly, are listed below. You also have access to a few tips on how to beat the heat after this list…

Sunburn: Although most people do not die from sunburn, the seriousness of this affliction depends upon its depth, size and location on the body. Sunburn is always more serious for infants and the elderly, as the pain, possible swelling, blisters, fever and headaches can be debilitating for those who cannot fend off such symptoms.

Usually, a cool shower and soap to remove any oils that may block pores and prevent the body from cooling naturally is the solution for a mild sunburn. Use natural aloe, as well, to help cool mild burns. If blisters develop, cover them with a sterile dressing and seek medical attention, as blisters from burns are prone to infection.

Heat Cramps: If you begin to expeience muscle pain and/or spasms, usually in the legs or abdominal muscles, then the heat really is getting to you. Stop what you’re doing and move to a coller location. You can slowly and lightly stretch the muscle and use gentle massage to relieve spasms. Take sips, not gulps, of up to half a glass of cool water every fifteen minutes and avoid caffeine and alcohol. If you begin to feel nauseated, seek medical attention immediately.

Heat Exhaustion: When you lose body fluids through exertion during hot weather, you’re asking for trouble. Heavy sweating is one sign that you may experience heat exhaustion as blood flow to the skin increases, causing blood flow to vital organs to decrease. This reversal of blood flow can result in mild shock. Symptoms include skin that is cool to the touch, despite heavy sweating, pale or flushed skin and a weak pulse. Fainting, nausea, dizziness, vomiting, fatigue and headaches also are all possible.

Relief for heat exhaustion comes from stopping all activity and lying down in a cool place. Loosen or remove clothing and apply cool, wet clothes to the skin. Fans or air-conditioning can help the situation, as both devices can help to cool the body and reverse the blood flow. If the victim experiences vomiting, contact medical help immediately. Otherwise, the victim may go into rapid dehydration.

Heat Stroke: Also known as “sun stroke,” victims who experience this heat-related illness can die if not treated immediately. In the case of heat stroke, the victim’s temperature control system stops working. Therefore, no sweat is produced to help cool the body.

Heat stroke symptoms include high body temperature, hot, red and dry skin, weak and rapid pulse and rapid and shallow breathing. Unlike heat exhaustion, you will not see sweat. The only treatment is to call 911 or another medical emergency service, or get the victim to a hospital immediately. The victim may or may not be unconscious, but without moving the victim to a cooler location and medical services, that victim may die. While you’re waiting for medical services, you can remove the victim’s clothing and wrap the person in cool, wet sheets to help reduce the body temperature.

Your activity level and the amount of time you spend in the sun or in oppressive heat has much to do with your health and well being. A sunburn can lead to heat cramps, which can lead to heat exhaustion and may lead to heat stroke. Heat illnesses are progressive, and attention to the symptoms is vital.

To avoid heat-related illnesses, try the following tips:

  • Drink water, even if you don’t feel thirsty. But, don’t overdrink, as too much water also is bad for your health.
  • Do not drink caffeine or alcohol, as both beverages are dehydrating.
  • Avoid sunburn by wearing loose, light-colored clothing and a wide-brim hat. An insulating layer of light clothing actually is cooler than going without clothes, as the fabric can trap a layer of air between your skin and the clothing. Apply sunscreen.
  • Stay as cool as possible by finding air conditioning somewhere other than your home if you lose or do not have that utility. Malls, libraries, churches and other public places can supply what you do not have.
  • Take it easy and avoid strenuous activities during mid-day. If your projects include physical labor, try to work in the early morning, when temperatures are at the coolest.
  • Do not, ever, leave pets or children in a closed vehicle. Temperatures can climb to 78 degrees to 120 degrees Farenheit in under eight minutes. As a side note, keep extra water in your car in case you become stranded.

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Top Ten Alternative Funeral Songs in the U.K.

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

This past January, the Telegraph reported on alternative funeral songs, listing ten top choices among 764 people questioned for the survey in the U.K. The video above won the top spot on that list, a cheery tune from Monty Python entitled, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.”

The tune is from the Life of Brian film, and it beat out competition from The Jam’s “Going Underground” and The Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out of This Place.” According to the Telegraph:

The survey, commissioned by the Children’s Society, also found that nine out of ten people found talking about funeral arrangements more difficult than talking about sex…A spokesman for the society said it appeared people were turning away from “serious” funeral tunes such as Robbie Williams’ Angels in an effort to make the experience a more uplifting one.

Lorraine Groves from the Children’s Society said: “Funerals have changed a lot in the past few years – more people are planning ahead to make their funerals personal and reflective of themselves.

“We know many people prefer a simple affair and would rather their mourners give donations in memory rather than lots of flowers, along with a little lighthearted twist during the proceedings like an alternative song.”

Here is the list, with links to videos at YouTube in case you’re so old you’ve forgotten the lyrics (let alone the most excellent outfits and makeup provided by artists such as Dr. and the Medics…):

  1. Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life – Eric Idle / Monty Python (above)
  2. Cabaret – Liza Minnelli
  3. Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye – Gracie Fields
  4. My Way – Sid Vicious
  5. They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa – Napoleon
  6. Fame! I Want To Live Forever – The cast of Fame (not the original in this video, but you can get the idea)
  7. We’ve Gotta Get Out Of This Place – The Animals
  8. Going Underground – The Jam
  9. Spirit In The Sky – Dr and The Medics
  10. Enjoy Yourself, It’s Later Than You Think – The Specials (this one performed by The Busters)

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Posted in Alternatives, Funeral Arrangements, Funeral Songs, Plan Your Own | No Comments »

Debate Continues over Shanidar Cave Burial Flowers

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
A view of Shanidar Cave

A view of Shanidar Cave

Between 1957 and 1961, Ralph Solecki and an archeology team from Columbia University discovered the first adult Neanderthal skeletons in Iraq. Known as the Shanidar Cave site, the two most famous skeletons include Shanidar I, an elderly male aged between 40-50 years, and Shanidar IV, otherwise known as the “flower burial.” It was once thought that Shanidar IV provided the best evidence for Neanderthal burial ritual, but debate continues over the evidence of flowers found at this site.

Shanidar IV was an adult male between 30-45 years, and found in a fetal position. The team gathered routine soil samples to analyze the vegetational history of the site, and clumps of pollen outside the normal range of pollen were found from those soil samples. Originally, scholars believed that flowers were used in a burial ritual, as the samples yielded plants that contained medicinal properties.

Some of the site samples included: Yarrow, Cornflower, Bachelor’s Button, St. Barnaby’s Thistle, Ragwort or Groundsel, Grape Hyacinth, Joint Pine or Woody Horsetail and Hollyhock. These plants are known among many as having curative powers as diuretics, stimulants, astringents and anti-inflammatory properties. This knowledge led to the belief that Shanidar IV might have had shamanic powers or that he was a medicine man, since no other burial site contained this pollen.

Since that time, more scholars have analyzed the Shanidar site and its resulting hypotheses and have offered some debate over earlier conclusions. One such argument centered on the introduction of pollen by native rodents. The Persian Jird is known to store seeds and flowers, so the site might have had natural and not cultural orgins.

Timothy Taylor, in his book, The Buried Soul: How Humans Invented Death (pgs 32-33), wrote:

The ‘grave of flowers’ was one of a number of remarkable finds at Shanidar. Among nine skeletons recovered was one of an adult who had sustained crippling injuries and who could not have survived without the constant attention of a close-knit community. In Shanidar: The First Flower People, published in 1971, Ralph Solecki argued not only that his Neanderthals had a kind of spirituality, but that they had belonged to a peaceful, loving society, hwere even the disabled wree valued. Solecki provocatively implied that Neanderthals were morally superior to us – or at least to those modern humans who were at that time leading the United States in its bloody losing battle over Vietnam.

Taylor also stated that even Solecki admitted that the ‘burials’ were not clear-cut, as the bones were discovered in an area where many people were killed by cave-ins or roof-falls. The absence of obvious grave goods other than the pollen at many sites, including Shanidar, opens the possibility that the excavated skeletons – many of which were incomplete – “were no more than the result of random preservation following accidental death.”

Scholars study burial habits to learn more about a culture, as scholars often believe that burials point to spirituality, which – in turn – might point to a more intelligent population. However, as Taylor argues in his book, burials sometimes do not point to spirituality or even to humane situations.

With that said, flowers have become a ritual for modern burials in many cultures. But, seldom do you see herbal plants in funeral flower arrangements. Perhaps by adding the Shanidar plants listed above to your next funeral arrangement, you can alter history – or, at least encourage debate among future scholars.

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Important Papers in Life and in Death

Monday, October 19th, 2009
Save those old photos digitally to extend the life of the photographs.

Save those old photos digitally to extend the life of the photographs.

Are you planning to adopt a child? Or, are you about to have surgery? Maybe you already lost a home to fire or flood, and you now realize how difficult it can be to replace important papers. Some items, such as photographs, may be impossible to replace. Which papers are important to have on hand, and how can you protect your important one-of-a-kind items? The ability to lay your hands on some documents within minutes is as important in life as it is in death.

The ability to find important papers easily can eliminate stress during a time when you do not need that stress. Additionally, the ability for loved ones to find documents they may need after you die can help them grieve with less stress as well.

Take a weekend to gather together your important documents. Make a list of any of the following that may be missing and plan to replace them immediately:

  • Birth certificates or adoption decrees
  • Marriage license
  • Wills
  • Durable Power of Attorney statements
  • Deeds and titles
  • Diplomas and certificates
  • Insurance policies
  • Contracts
  • Social Security cards
  • Military separation papers
  • Visas and passports
  • Income tax returns
  • Medical and other important financial documents
  • All credit card numbers and passwords
  • The VIN and license plate numbers of your vehicles
  • Information about insured valuables, along with images of those valuables

Make a copy of each document and store one copy in a safe deposit box and keep the originals in a fireproof file box at home in a safe place. You may want to store another copy in another state with a trusted friend or an attorney, as many a bank and entire neighborhoods have been destroyed by floods and fire.

One way to save these documents is by scanning them and filing them on a disc. Be aware that software programs can change from year to year, so save the files as .jpg (picture image) or as a PDF (Portable Document Format), as these two types of file formats have been around for years, and may be around for many more years. Both file formats can be opened by a number of software programs, too. Sometimes, scanning and saving photographs to disc is one way to actually preserve older photographs.

This is the answer to one way that you can save family photographs. Digital photos can be copied onto a disk and the disk left with a friend or loved one. They also can be sent by email to anyone who has email. If you still develop your photographs, make a habit of ordering two copies and store one set away from your home.

If you have already finalized a will and you have a power of attorney, you could use this person as a trusted resource for your important papers. Two safety deposit boxes, located in two different towns or cities, is one solution to saving your important papers and disks. You also can register with an online storage business that allows you to save data on their servers.

Pulling together important papers and photographs is one way you can rest easy when it comes to important events in your life. After all, unless you can find your passport, there’s little chance you can take advantage of last-minute airfare specials on flights to overseas countries. And, you can replace furniture you might lose in a fire or flood, but there’s little chance to replace those one-of-a-kind items such as photographs.

Finally, unless your loved ones know where to find your will, there might be a chance that they will not let you rest in peace.

Once again, safety is stressed in how you store these important papers and documents. Although there is some logic in knowing that a thief cannot find those papers if you can’t find them, you might enjoy the peace of mind in knowing that you can put your hands on important documents within minutes if needed.

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Posted in Estate Planning, Other Legal Matters, Wills & Estate Planning | 1 Comment »

Historical Burial Traditions: Bahamian Burials III

Saturday, October 17th, 2009
Nassau cemetery with a mix of memorials and transient grave sites.

Nassau cemetery with a mix of memorials and transient grave sites.

In the first blog entry about Bahamian burials, you may have learned that there was a distinction among social classes and between races in life as well as in death in the Bahamas. In the second article, you may have witnessed how both Europeans and Africans influenced each other in the types of memorials reserved for the dead and the designation of a burial as permanent or transient. This article, the last in the series, shows how class defined the Bahamian burial; however, cultural influences also shaped the Bahamian burial scene.

Many Europeans who served in the military or who stayed on the Bahamas’ islands after the American Revolution often purchased gravestones from England or Europe. The marble and granite stones that you might see in Nassau or on Paradise island represent wealthier Europeans who had the means to afford these stones. Even today, in less populated Bahamian islands such as San Salvador, you may find machine-carved polished granite stones. But, these stones were delivered to the island, just like Christmas trees, beer and any other commodity consumed on that latter island.

More commonly, you can find a mix of grave styles within Nassau’s cemeteries as shown in the image below:

A mix of social class and culture in this cemetery.

A mix of social class and culture in this cemetery.

In the image immediately above, taken in Nassau, you can see a polished granite stone, a hand-carved headstone and a pile of carved limestone rocks in the far right background. All three are graves, and the least permanent grave site is the one surrounded and covered by the limestone blocks. The cement borders designate the difficult-to-dig grave sites, and many of them do not contain headstones. A simple pine box lies just feet under the earth.

But, what you cannot see in this image are objects left on many graves. In San Salvador, a custom of leaving plates, vessels, bottles and other objects is more common than in Nassau, but those objects can be found at almost any cemetery or grave site, no matter whether its in a church yard or on town property.

James Deetz writes in his book, In Small Things Forgotten:

…there is a clear pattern in the types of objects used by African Americans to decorate graves. Bottles and jars predominate, sometimes broken in such a way that they appear to be whole. This was often accomplished by breaking a hole in the bottom, invisible when the object is set upright on the grave. Such breakage could be seen to be done to prevent theft, but [John} Vlach cites extensive evidence that such is not the case, since the community will not disturb grave offerings, even coins, as a result of customs which had their origin in the African past. Similar grave ornamentation is known from all West and Central Africa, where, as in America, graves and their decorations are seen as inviolate, not to be stolen from.

A quick look at graves in a more remote grave yard on San Salvador Island shows little of this African influence. But, if you sit for a while and concentrate, you can begin to see a shard of glass here, a nail there, a small vase and a shell there. After a while, you might begin to see entire plate sets, bottles and a series of glassware set along the barriers that mark the grave site. Some of these same objects are found in African-American grave sites throughout the southern U.S.

While many scholars have put forth theories about these symbols, only one may make sense – that of the slave who wants to return home and who finds that way home after death. Many death rituals, symbols and stories about death that have emerged from slavery centers on a watery symbolism. But, it is a dangerous thing to assume a belief system. For instance, in one headline in a story about a Bahamian grave site found recently in Miami, the writer asks, “Graves without grievers?” Some people may be confounded about how a cemetery filled with dozens of people in the early twentieth century could go undocumented and unnoticed.

Without understanding a culture, it may be difficult to understand that, at times, it can be easy to walk away from a cemetery. And, as an African American in this country, until recently, it could be very easy to die without documentation. Part of the reason for this ability to hide after death is found in the way European and American cultures clung to the slave culture over the centuries. Another reason is found in the African culture itself, one that may want to keep some personal points private. Deetz points to a William Faulkner quote in Faulkner’s book, Go Down, Moses, that might sum up the issue:

“…the grave, save for its rawness, resembled any other marked off without order about the barren plot by shards of pottery and broken bottles and old brick and other objects insignificant to sight but actually of a profound meaning and fatal to touch, which no white man could have read.”

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Historic Funeral Traditions: Bahamian Burials II

Saturday, October 17th, 2009
Bahamian vault graves on San Salvador Island

Bahamian vault graves on San Salvador Island

Are you appalled by the idea that a family or community might re-use grave sites as mentioned in the previous Bahamian burial article? Or, perhaps the condition of the Bahamian cemeteries and grave sites might disturb you. If so, pick up the book, In Small Things Forgotten, by James Deetz to learn more about earlier American burials. On page 23, Deetz states:

“…it is not unusual to find single stones, from earlier in the eighteenth century, that mark the resting places of husband and wife as well as children. Group interment of this type is typical of earlier periods, and the contemporary concept of the churchyard was consistent with such a practice. Registers of churchyards invariably list far more interments than there are stones to account for them. Not everyone received a gravestone in the earlier periods, but unless we are able to conduct excavations in these cemeteries, the exact relationship between the numbers and groupings of the deceased and the markers in the cemetery will remain unknown. What is known is that the seventeenth-and eighteenth-century concept of a burying ground was that of a finite space that would hold all the deceased members of a parish regardless of how congested the space became. Diarists of the period mention bets of bone and teeth seen in the earth excavated for a new grave…”

The Bahamas presents such a burial environment, one that was reinforced after the American Revolution and continued even today. In earlier processes, however, graves also reflected the European tradition of memorial, and in many churches throughout Nassau, you can find memorials along a church’s inner walls and even along walkways:

Memorial plaques to the dead along a church wall.

Memorial plaques to the dead along a church wall.

An old stone embedded in a church walkway.

An old stone embedded in a church walkway.

Many of these memorial plaques represent the deaths of military men who were embedded in the Bahamas during and after the Revolution. Although at least one plaque is dedicated to a man lost at sea, many more memorials are dedicated to those who came to the islands and who lost their lives to diseases such as yellow fever.

Like memorial plaques, the vaults shown at the top of the page are part of what could be a resistance to the transient grave site in the islands. These two vaults are created from cement, and they resist any attempt to re-use the graves, unlike the temptation to reuse graves made more available by identifiable concrete borders and piles of rock. The islands, however, can support only so many graves of a permanent nature because of space limitations. You can find many graves throughout the southern U.S. like the ones shown at the top of the page. These types of graves are particular to African-American church cemeteries.

Once you visualize the church formality with the memorials shown above for Europeans who died in the Bahamas, the African influence seen in Nassau’s graveyards seems to bend to that European memorial influence in a more basic way:

Broken stones lean against a church wall.

Broken stones lean against a church wall.

The stones above may have been removed to re-use a grave. Showing deterioration, they resemble the same intent as memorials on the inside walls of the previous church. But, the exposure to weather tends to reduce those memorials to general deference, unlike a plaque devoted to a specific person.

The following grave shows more modern style, as sometimes it takes a bit of creativity to memorialize the dead and to make a grave site permanent when the culture leans more toward a transient burial site…

Bathroom/kitchen tiles as memorial.

Bathroom/kitchen tiles as memorial.

The grave site shown immediately above might send the same message as the vault graves shown at the top of the grave. Although the tiles seem less formidable than concrete, the message is the same – some effort went into this grave site, and to tear it apart might show more disrespect to the creator of that site than to the person buried there. After all, this grave has no identifying marks to let anyone know who might be buried here.

There is one more section to go in this series, as the African burial tradition is explored further in both the Bahamas and in the States.

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