Death: The Trip of a Lifetime; 1; The Chasm

About a year ago in the midst of creating the programs to come we were photographing tombstones in a funny little cemetery and gonna West Africa. We had an official escort along from the good man government a young man named Siddiq who is obviously not thrilled at being immersed in death for a week. We'd already dragged him through an overflowing mortuary N.F. three day funeral for sidique the cemetery was the last straw. He marched up to me and said Why are you doing this awful subject. I heard the question before. The answer is really quite simple. Death not space is the final frontier. And unlike every other frontier death is the one we all have to go to one day. So what follows is a journey of reconnaissance by looking at the way people all over the world prepare for life's last great adventure. We hope to get some sense of the adventure itself. It's a journey of grief and joy fear and hope. The trip of a lifetime. You know we're not going to want to

go to and then we. Don't. Want to. They have come to this place for twenty five centuries. The holy men have come. And those who reject life's simpler pleasures. Pilgrims the

curious the fascinated the seekers. They have all come here where they believe the world began. The center of the universe. Even now. The home of time itself. This city has many a maps of India and it is barren Naisi urban areas. But for those who come here it is also a nano onea a forest of bliss. And ruder of us the home of Lord Shiva. Above all it is crushing the City of Light. In this most holy place for Hindus. They wash away their sins in the sacred Ganges. Worship their gods in the thousands of temples and hear the teachings of their faith. They come here for another reason as well. They come here to die.

The City of Light is also the City of Death because dying in Kashi means liberation freedom forever from the endless cycle of birth death and reincarnation. Yet even in this city where death is everywhere the people respond to it as they do everywhere else. By coming here they seek a good death. Sitting in the hospices with their dying they grieve and hope for a better existence in the next world. And like all of us they surround themselves with manmade images of death from the fanciful gods of destruction to the very real fires of oblivion. Cremations go on here 24 hours a day. And the streets are full of the morning dead. We live knowing we will die knowing we all stand the chasm

between life and death and must one day cross that knowledge of our own inescapable mortality has a profound effect on how we live. Death is part of life not its opposite is the chasm less terrifying here because real Death walks the streets or is death best left. It toyed with the sky. Here you are. OK. Why. Didn't you. Tell me.

I'm Greg Palmer. It's Halloween night in my neighborhood. In Seattle Washington. It's an average American neighborhood I guess. Pretty quiet most of the time. We tend to stay in our houses a lot in part because of the weather. In part because that's the way we like it. Yeah no no no. This is our one Kashi like night in the dead walk our streets cardboard cadavers hang in our front doors and we dress our kids up in flame retardant plastic like reflective death suits. Two thousand years ago the Celtic All Hallows Eve was the time people tried to frighten off the spirits of the dead because those real Celtic unpleasant spirits were the ones playing tricks. Lethal witch on the fire stake through the heart tricks. Most modern parents don't know anything about that. We don't have any sense of what we're really doing out here tonight. Once a year we take this monstrous terrible and

comprehensible thing death. And create our own image of it with black and orange crepe paper used clothing symbolic vegetables and rubber. Death isn't frightening anymore because we can see it and control it. It's a five year old bunny with a face like a walrus. What happens in my neighborhood is a lot different than what happens in tonight or any other time. The Hindu culture seems to embrace death. While my culture just as emphatically tries to repellant ignore it or at least modify it into acceptable forms. And has it worked for us. It's worked so well we've forgotten why we're doing it in the first place. Halloween is the only ritual for the dead my culture celebrates. But now Halloween has as much to do with death as the Orange Bowl Parade has to do with citrus fruit. But you don't have to walk around Halloween night to see death reduced to controllable images.

Just look at that death we've surrounded ourselves with. For centuries. You're death images can terrify inspire and even amusing but they all seem to serve the same purpose to put death in human terms as we peer across the chasm between life and death. Do we want to see the real thing or only the creations of our own mind. Concrete knowable and controllable. And even usable. Some death art has practical applications. Whether song played worn carried or buried. Close close close

to easy practical death. Art can become death business especially in cultures that believe in extraordinary graves lavish funerals and sometimes on rare occasions death business can supersede all others. This isn't tonsil a village in Ghana in the heart of the Ashanti empire. Their shanties are famous for their huge funerals and in time so it's famous because this entire village of craftspeople Weavers artists. Depends for its livelihood on death. It was. Probably the best known death art of the Ashanti is clothing worn to funerals made from a drink or a coffee. In town so they create thousands of yards of this cloth yearly dying and drying old dresses sheets and flower sacks on any given day it looks like an undertaker's laundry truck has exploded in town so streets.

Isn't just decorative. It's stamped with symbols like these and there are hundreds more each with a different meaning and decorous symbols can express grief praise God or make enigmatic observations about life like my favorite. When the hippopotamus surfaces and says the crocodile is dead you shouldn't argue. And many a dinner stamp say something about the deceased. What does the spider say to you Spider. Yes that's what I did. Why is that OK. They say he is insane. Yeah. He indicates wisdom. And the importance of wisdom. It's very. Risky to spend. Yeah. What does that indicate wealth. Money. Yeah. Yeah. Every country it's that way. You see.

Joseph and see it is the premier addict or a stamp designer and maker in the town so he's been carving his messages into calabash shells for decades. He says a drinker stamps and cloth help people focus and express their feelings with death and grief. Sometimes it's easier to werent than think about it or say oh you know. Around the corner. Stanford has been applying Mr and C is stamps for more than 60 years. And sometimes reapply. Although the dye used to darken a dink of cloth is permanent. The ink used to stamp it is not. Wash a cloth once and the art of Mr and Mr Taylor disappears for ever and yet we let you write. But Mr Taylor isn't concerned about the temporary nature of his life's work. He thinks the stamp he's using now says it all. It means fear nothing except God.

Your gun is capital of a frog. Benjamin so I also support himself and his family with practical death art. Because. He designs and makes extraordinary coffins that like some a dick or stamps comment on the person who occupies them. A good mother might be buried in a big mother hen a cocoa farmer and a cocoa pod. The future occupant of that blue coffin in the back was the first fisherman in town to own an outboard motor. And Mister So as most popular kaufen best. But it does feel right. The man who ordered this beauty will spend eternity in vehicular style. The coffins and cough have an obvious functional purpose but doesn't all death art even the most frivolous serve a purpose. Doesn't it help us he could cross that terrifying

chasm or at least think we are. Again. This is not the shopping mall of some bizarre death theme park. This is the main plaza in Mexico. I mean 50 miles west of Mexico City. It's October 30 for my Howie but here it's the night of the dead. That one time each year when the Mexican people step out edge of the chasm and invite

their dead ancestors to come back home. Pull up a chair and relax. No rubber masks no tricks or treats but a private media descended. Into a city. The Mexican jokes about death caresses and sleeps with some of it is one of his favorite toys. And is most. In the past where there are flowers. In. The old lady's sake that flowers just the right image for the night of the dead they are dead but still beautiful. Besides flowers and death there are also toys. And they all seem to have one purpose. To reduce death. Just another being. Watches TV uses the toilet and the sugar.

It's interesting how quickly figures like these don't seem appallingly garish but in fact funny and even meaningful. Death and Life are so intertwined they say that death figures can do every day living things. Though if I were to buy this one. Take it home to my friend the obstetrician. I don't think he'd see the joke. He might see it but that's probably all you'd see for the people of Mexico though. The night of the dead is a lot more than just an annual macabre joke. It serves the same purpose as my Halloween but unlike mine this Halloween hasn't been stripped cleaned and d bone of all its original meaning. On the tiny island of Iran are separated by only 100 yards of green chilled water.

12 families live on the island including the cats to humans into and their children and grandchildren there. An Indian proud of their faith their heritage and today especially proud of the family altar they lovingly created for the night of the dead. Just because this is the way I will welcome the spirits who are sisters are dead when they come back in tonight. This is their head and their Coca-Colas. Those were the refreshments they like father like fruit so we had lots of fruit. Everything you see here will go in and buy us eventually. Anyone have any taste that those will be absorbed by the spirits. Miss is a hardworking farmer and fisherman with little time for fantasies. Does he

really believe the spirits of his ancestral dead are dropping in later tonight for a Coca-Cola. See if you get it but told me that his late father in law pounded on the walls of this house for two hours one night of the dead because the altar wasn't ready yet. You see his father in law Dina says he is a very impatient man even dead. Before their deceased relatives arrive for snacks the Iranian families gather on top of the island to hold a service in the church courtyard. The prayers

are read by the family fathers because Iran has no resident priest. But the community involvement in the event makes it all that more heartfelt when the service is over. They go back down the hill to wait for their ancestral guests to arrive. 10 miles from Iran and back on the mainland. Is the town of syncing song or the night of the dead is observed by an all night vigil. Town cemetery. Instance on families who spend days cleaning and decorating their ancestors graves. Now they sit in reverence but also in defense. Another strange group has arrived in sin since on this night. Besides the spirits of the dead tourists. Thousands are. Come to see a real old fashioned know Che de los Muertos. Put.

It in the monument. Inside the graveyard walls. The tour is jockey for position on the muddy pads to catch that perfect snapshot of genuine religious rapture before their bus leaves for the next stop on the three cemetery tour. The. The. It's hard for me not to feel very uncomfortable about the tourist frenzy that's going on here right now. I've always thought graveyards were quiet contemplated reverent places and other people it's incense onshore a remarkable ability to ignore their more obnoxious visitors standing a few feet away. They're still outnumbered by them 15 to one. What they put up with it. Not because they have to but because they want to. There's a financial reason of course a lot of us are selling hotdogs and tacos tonight. But there's also a

spiritual reason. Look at this crowd of gawkers and want to get a new random tourist. But yes. It's almost as if confronting death is not quite enough. Someone must see you do it. Just two months ago. So he is one of the few townspeople here tonight in actual mourning. If anyone besides me is offended by the frenzy it should be him. Says the tourist. In fact they honor the town and marshalling his memory. In the middle of the night to conduct a brief mass. And after that the night of the dead becomes an increasingly private affair. A few hours later the tourists the priest and even the. Merino is still here. With his grief. His memories. And

maybe just maybe. The spirit of his. This is the graveyard of some Martin's Church in Wales. And this is the grave of poet Dylan Thomas. A particular hero. Is an unbaptized Unitarian intellectually I don't think there's anything of Thomas here now just bones in a box. And yet for me emotionally there is something very moving about this simple white cross on the Welsh hills. I've been thinking about being here off and on for 30 years since I read my first Thomas Paul. It was ironically and death shall have no dominion and death shall have no dominion. Dead men naked they shall be one with the man and with the West moon when the moon is up picked up the book team is gone they shall have stone of the devil below and though they go mad do they

shall be sane though they sink through the sea they shall rise again. The Love Boat has been lost love shall not and death shall have no dominion and death shall have no dominion. They be met then the dead does name was hit some of the characters Emma through daises. Break break in the stands until the sun breaks down and death shall have no dominion. Dylan Thomas like millions of others like me enjoy the accoutrements of death and avoided looking in death's face until he had two weeks ago this was just another guy on the bus. You would have been afraid of him you probably wouldn't have noticed him. Now he is mysterious repellent terrifying to some people even though he is potentially more dangerous to you a week ago on the bus and how you react to him now has something to do with

whether you have experienced the moment yet the moment when you realize for the first time when you really feel it that someday this will be you. For me that moment was just a few years ago. The Japanese dance troupes song Thai juga it come to town for an appearance including a free performance of the dance of birth and death. For man painted white nearly naked descending on ropes down the facade of a six story building. There were probably a thousand people in Seattle's Pioneer Square when the performance began. We heard the song of the humpback whale and then faces ghostlike even in the bright sun appeared over the building's roof. About 10 minutes into the performance Yoshi Yukito caught his dance of birth and death became real.

Yoshio he decoded died right there in front of us. Had I been younger I could have ignored his death convinced as the young are of their own immortality. But this death was so unexpected more than anything else. It was so quick and so close. He was alive and a second later he was dead. And it was impossible to ignore that that is precisely the situation. For all of us. Consider just one obvious example. Every time you get in your car your life depends not only on your driving skills but the driving skills of everyone who passes you every single complete stranger. How close is death. It's about a half a foot away here inside the plane it's 72 degrees there. Peanuts to read magazines to read a movie to watch. But just

six inches that half the length of my shoe. It's very cold. What oxygen there is is going bad 500 miles an hour. And that first step is six miles straight down in here. Peanuts in magazine out there. Oblivion. How do I deal with that. Now that I know I have to. How does anybody. It makes sense to look in places with a long tradition of proximity to death. Like Kashi carbon Arras. One of the other things the city is called is Mahatma Seana the great cremation ground. Here people seem to rely on their face to face death's presence. But one result of that faith is a paradoxical practicality. The Ganges that most sacred river is also horribly polluted partly because of the floating dead their bodies and their ashes. Yet Hindu pilgrims bathe daily in the guy and drink its waters because their faith

tells them that the river is so spiritually pure. Nothing else matters. They are. Not far away however practicality takes over. The Indian government has instituted an experimental anti pollution programme introducing turtles into the Ganges. To eat the human remains they find there. But you don't have to go to the mysterious East to find interesting responses to Death's presence. How about grey stayed. In London. Dr Samuel Johnson wrote When a man is tired of London he is tired of life. He might just. Look at. When a man is tired of life he can have a swell time in London.

For instance a person can visit Westminster Abbey the world's only gigantic religious end of his famous not for its architecture stained glass. But for those who lie a moldering beneath its floors. For the youngsters there's the London Dungeon where the city's 2000 year old fascination with the dead and Albert got that way comes alive in a series of arresting of love. For both a nation and eccentric individuals. England does indeed swing like a pendulum do like a pit in a pendulum do.

You can imagine that in Dickens time with the overgrowth and this now and the odor because for drainage this was a very very unsanitary place. Now Robert Wilkins is one of those eccentric individuals a psychiatrist who admits he's been fascinated by death ever since some schoolmates threw him over a cemetery wall. In London he truly knows where the bodies are buried like bunny hill fields where 100 20000 Londoners have been interred since the plague. And a good tombstone is not hard to find. In olden times people used to actually tell the tale of death on a memorial such as this. In the seventeen twenty eight day Mary Page died in London. And we know exactly from reading her monument how she died. It says in 67 months she was tapped 66 times had taken away two hundred and forty gallons of water without ever replying up to a case ever fearing the

operation. That's a wonderfully graphic description of someone in the last throes of heart failure. Why exactly people should mention the 240 gallons I cannot imagine this or even count them. That's right and that's the physician who is paid by the gallon. Dr Wilkins also knows where the bodies are not buried in London. Mike the most famous permanent resident in the belfry of St. James Garlock Heights church. To me garlic was found while they were doing some restoration work in the 19th century and there was a naturally mummified body. Probably about three hundred years old with no signs of being embalmed at all. The only mummy in

Britain that is indigenously British. I think he's beautiful. I think he is innocent and he's beautiful. You're not arguing for the Hindu cremation and burial and instead moma vacation you don't want to be propped up in your own parish church do. That's not a bad idea. That's not bad. Barring mummification I suspect Bob Wilkins would rather spend eternity as the explorers are Richard Burton and his wife the Lady Isabelle are. In this full size stone field and in a London Cemetery. Bob's visit to Dickon is here many times and discovered a wonderful secret around the back of the tent. There's a window for the truly fascinated ser Richard on the right. Lady Isabelle on the left. Now what I've done is to take a conscience conscious decision to come from my death anxieties and form them into a sort of therapy. The thesis being that if you miss yourself in death you can't be afraid of it.

But your. Contemporaries think you're creepy. Yeah I'm called Dr. Death and it hasn't worked as a therapy anyway I'm just a fight and viable was on live on and on and on and on and on and on are now free on the militia for that we're going to follow the lead of what will be the fix it is a right to die. That's not the be all throughout there when I feel I want to run it when I formally now employ a place of destiny of $450 like you know on the left and only in Afghanistan I got that feeling. It's going to go on but you know what's going to it's not a set. So when I write that would you like someone for yourself when you walk. All right. Why'd you buy it. Why of all of it into only on the accounts are you worried that your. Interest here is perhaps more of it. Is everybody you know why when in your neighborhood. Probably not. So you're going to sit on this. You're alive that's right and then when you're dead You'll inform your wife is to me she survives.

This radical reform in a format here and put you in and you go well you don't have time to get used to this rule and put it on the youth for them get used to sleeping or. Really imagine like seriously can you imagine spending eternity in there not really want to see what it's like with the lid closed. Let me know when you want to come out. Let's. Just tap on something we may hear you. Except for the absence of marigolds best the paper Miche a cadaver. Precious gold mountain on the island of Taiwan is almost that death theme park. The Mexican town square becomes once a year. Only this place is year round and appropriately a cemetery. Besides is sometimes spectacular graves. There's the richly appointed bowl with

spots where the bones of a thousand. Just outside the bone towers the hall of the bigger than life wax disciples the giant Buddha of death and the heel of a thousand Buddhas all intended to accustom visitors to death so they won't be frightened by their own ultimate. Although I'm not exactly sure about this statue has to do with that particular mission. Very pretty. Precious gold mountain was created and is completely controlled by Mr. Chow. Instead of filling his death world with benign amusing oddities as Bob Wilkins in London is done. Mr. Souers filled his with things he likes to see the Buddhas the tower the elephant and it works for him although surrounded by death he calls himself the king of happiness and he moves it. The good it is Mr. Giles favorite pressure's going to mount an

attraction the centerpiece the thing you must see as far as he is concerned is a tunnel through the mountain called the trip of a lifetime. A symbolic stroll through life stages as envisioned by the king of happiness. So you. Don't know after you pass through the trip of a lifetime. You shouldn't be so afraid of death when you come out. You should think that death. Is just a natural result. Mr Chow wants to create an environment so comfortable people will die to come here but die happily and he thinks the way to share is happiness in the face of death. The key to accepting death is a part of life. Is education. My grandmother died and my grandpa died. My mother a little cousin and. It's like

something I can't get away from. Somehow I think that nobody else is going to die when I just will be nobody after having seen these are fourth graders in St. Johns School in Seattle. Today they are facing death through education. What does this title mean a time to live in a time to die. Like everybody's going to die someday eventually we're going to have to deal with it during a bad month four years ago. One student and two parents in the St. John's community died. Grief counselors came in but St. Johns decided that kids needed more than just a quick emotional fix. They needed basic knowledge. After I die I'm sure nobody's going to remember my favorite movie but teacher Keith Bruni does with each 4th grade class now is a basic educational unit treating death like spelling and math with homework and a lot of in class projects. Kate's kids have written their own wills listed their memorable talents and described the crosses they had to bear in life. It was this it's

run heavily to siblings and I'm like many American kids. They've talked about death and listened. You know if I say to you tomorrow we're going on a picnic. You're not going to be afraid because you know what that is you know what a picnic is but if I say to you tomorrow you're going to die. That's a little bit scarier because you don't know what that is. And not many people come back to tell about it. One of the things that we're going to do today. Is I want you to make your. Grave stone. You think about I want you to write your own. Epitaph. I want you to think about what do you want people to remember about you when you were white or grey before you start cutting your paper you need to have your epitaph written. By Mark. It's. Like.

Saying. You know you are interesting. I think that's a wonderful. Time. And I want your life. I'm glad that you work so hard. And there's an. Active shows that these kids are dealing with. Kids could handle it

so I can be near my love. Say a few honest words. Sing a gentle song. Stories about me making you laugh. I love. And if you come in my garden with the juice stick to your cheek. The kids of St. John's have passed this season and it's for facing their own death with walk the final exam and that is a long way away. Are you afraid of death. I don't feel as scared as I used to. So now I feel more comfortable. They have a lifetime to make their preparations and find death images with which they can live during the next 75 years. They're going to see a lot of those images no longer in the

name of education but entertainment. You can't talk about fascination with death without talking about the popular media. In the 1980s a quarter of all the fiction sold in America was written by Stephen King. It's not because he's one of the great prose stylist in literary history but because he tells a good story and more often than not that story has something to do with death. You're in the entertainment capital of the world. They've killed millions of people for our amusement since the Great Train Robbery first hit the screen in 1903. The biggest trauma will be like the Toxic Avenger where you have someone being made into a milkshake.

That kind of death you're talking about. Death that's in the class of Newcome high part too where a person is dropped by a 30 foot square. And crushed by a giant acorn. I mean what kind of death are you talking about. You know back in my life if you have any young people being made into french fries people having their heads squashed by cars. For 20 years trauma films of New York has been America's foremost Taki independent filmmaking company the kind about which all other filmmaking companies say. The least. From. What trauma owner own Sure Lloyd Kaufman does with death. Is really quite simple. He makes slapstick lethal. A man slips on a banana peel and he's got smaller. Death is diminished by becoming as threatening as a pike. Lloyd however disagrees.

I think if you if you are in an audience that sees a trauma film Death is bigger than life vanished. Yeah it's it's the start. Personally I'm a little bit of a boar hound. You know I I enjoy horror pictures and I always have and I probably always will. You never look at your shoes. I never looked at my shoes once it is a minute Gore hound horror writer Eric Salzburg distributes international films much like me. He says fascination with death on film isn't just American. It's worldwide. Two most amazing films I've ever seen. Most amazing action which you've ever seen. Very violent very gory but really incredible come out of Asia. They'll have a guy with a gun. That's the way you know. Just. The literacy of this human being off the planet. Real bullets. Why did people anywhere want to watch that. I think you know most people are pretty scared of the big D in there you know.

They they want to have some kind of 30 experience or a film worth reading or in my case to writing what Eric sells Gaber imagines Dick warlock does warlock remembers with particular fondness the time a monster chased him through the woods turned him upside down and beat him to death against the mountainside. I think warlock has been a Hollywood stunt man for 20 years. If you go to the movies much you've probably seen him die every way but quietly in his sleep. There have been a couple of things that I've done rice that I could have voted on but most of the time like I say I try to eliminate as much of that that danger as possible. I have total control over what I do otherwise. And that's what Dick warlock sees as his real job. Not dying. That cathartic experience of watching other people die. Eric's old schemer talks about his

part of the attraction knowing that the people don't really die. If a professional like Dick warlock can survive falling stabbing gouging hang crushing crushing burning we think will be OK on the freeways. You can be able to walk away from this which is your baggage. Lord I hope. Yeah I've got about three years ago and I hope to do that. I'll probably probably get killed on the road to the south Carol. What ready. Another way some of us overcome death or pain is by not quite. More people are killed on the American interstate highway system every day than it ever did. But these days you almost have to drive to live and you don't have to throw yours out.

Bob Wilkins Vizard's out and Lloyd often create their own death worlds and then populate them with understandable image. These folks populate their self-created Death world. With understandable images to. Take. Them out. Seemed. Understandable controllable. Even the feet of it. And the only real difference between them and us. Is the danger. Of daredevils are just that people who dare the devil to take them away. But are. Trying to peer past that chasm and see death in the flashes of lightning on the other side. Is that fascination. Or is it. Here. For those people who don't have the luxury of creating their own death worlds but have death thrust upon them. Fascination is ridiculous and fear is everything.

This is the corner we learn Varney in Southeast Washington D.C. Ward 8. It's one of the most dangerous street corners in America a likely place to get killed and this is the most likely time between midnight and dawn on a hot heavy summer weekend night in this place and places like it all over the world. The people live very close to death you have to be crazy to hang around here. I know I wouldn't be here except for the assistance of Mr. Carter who we hired for the occasion. But for many people without the assistance of Mr. Carter this is life. They have to pass by here every day to live their lives. I got shot Moho about 15 year old boy Matthew Carey knows a corner well he's lived in Wheeler environment all his life for the sake was shot me sort of in your blood type as Jeff says at least off a light. Let's look at your personal spirit like when it was bad. When we go to the store you walk his

dog door like just watch him get back all the time. Good night closed door. Only think about it no more. Matthew Perry doesn't think about the death and fear that held Washington Valley Green neighborhood for so long because he and some others are taking control of their neighborhood by taking it back if only in the very immediate area. Only by pushing the danger away by a block or two. But it's working. 20 yards from that most dangerous of street corners. This is what it was like the next afternoon. But fear fear makes you feel so this is it is just talk to God. You can be. With me. You can't think one of the principle forces in reclaiming Valley Green is Jackie Massey. I'm very proud. I like looking out the window saying guess what I'm saying.

Everybody is doing their own thing I'm only listening. No one. In the US and that is know this sort of the. Jackie is paid a terrible price for living here. One of her own sons was murdered. Another is in prison for a very long time as an accessory to murder. That's why when they were a little way. I don't think that is not one community in any other community as it is. People make communities but you just describe a man dying in your home. Absolutely nobody has ever died in my hallway or the hallway anybody I know you know why because I also described the fact that we did not take control of ourselves. We were passive people. And I'm describing to the control of the house.

Control Jackie. Matthew and their neighbors must live somewhere in this dangerous place is their home. So just like the daredevil you try to control deaths images of the mountain see. The bad guys. They have reduced the proximity of death and their lives and so many of those lives better. Know Jackie's grandchildren still live with fear of death like their fathers. For them that death is not so familiar anymore. Cambodia killing 170. For the warring political factions. The lives of individual people seem to mean nothing. One of those people was Mrs CI a wife mother. One day

hiding in the woods near her village she watched Mer Rouge soldiers torture and kill her husband and most of her children. This is eem escaped. To America. But she found that the fear followed her. This is Cheney and today a grandmother living in Long Beach California. She is blind. Not for any physiological reason. But because she saw too much. When I witnessed all of these people being killed and their overhead is not just a headache my brain and I can't see anything. My religion becomes a brewery. And then there is pain. This is Iam has surrounded herself with memories of her last home and family man made images of death will never console her. She has been too long at the chasm

too close to the edge. I want to present movies. I don't want to see anything that involves shooting or stepping. I lost my husband my children my siblings are gone. My heart is broken. 10 more minutes. And try to stay on the sidewalk. Halloween is almost over for another year. Incidents on about now the graveyard should just be filling up. In Valley Green in Washington D.C. espec Jackie Massey is just gathering the grandchildren in for the night takes over. And misses even. Who knows what Mrs. Heene thinks of Halloween. One of the things happened in the last hour. More than 6000 people have died throughout the world. Not long after meeting she and am I watched my son play a video game.

He could die three times before the game was over. And in between his death he killed dozens of people. Just the kind of slaughter Mrs IOM watched in Cambodia for real but for her the bodies had names and faces and they didn't just flicker and disappear like they do in video games. So her mind forced them to disappear and everything else as well. For me though the real tragedy of her life is in her blindness or even the loss of her family. She's safer now than she ever has been before but she will never feel safe. Cheney is terrified all the time. And that's a horrible curse for anyone to endure. Because the question is why we aren't all curse all terrified by our pending death. In my culture death is the opposite of life. The opposite of everything we value. But it doesn't constantly terrify us because we've found ways to mediate the opposition ways to convince ourselves that the chasm between life and death isn't as deep or as frightening as it seems. As you've seen one of the things we do is create a controllable death

images like my son's video game villains. It's ironic I guess from watching fictional deaths he feels safer having to watch the same thing for real. This is emo will never feel safe again. For many people a video game is a ritual that presents a myth the myth that if you can just punch jump and kick fast enough you shall not die through other older rituals and myths we tell ourselves stories about ourselves especially stories about our deaths. They help to reassure us. We do have some control over life's last adventure. That's what the next program is about seeking the good death and avoiding the bad death by using ritual and myth to control those simple questions of our final moments. What when where how and why. Everything in fact except who. Because the question of who dies is the only one we can answer for sure now.

I want. Funding for this

program was provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and bi annual financial support from viewers like you. See it's going to get.