The Intimate Death

In Lloyd Chandler's folk song “conversations with death" later made popular by various artists and most popular by blue grass recording artist Ralph Stanley, death is once again given depiction entitatively as a spiritual being born of Appalachian bible belt southern folklore. 

“ I’ll fix your feet till you can’t walk” says death to its unfortunate victim in the song. I’ve heard it said of the old timers how people talked about their legs going cold giving them indication that they were were dying. This feeling of icy cold associated with the touch of a spirit whose one purpose in existence is to rend spirit from flesh, knowing no barter other than the coin passed or prayer spoken for mercy in itself becomes the spirit if mercy in distant whispers that quiet pain with cold numbness. This spirit calls the soul away locking bone and muscle in place like a door forced closed till there is nowhere to go but out.

These days, however, outside of sudden tragedy, we die differently, forgoing the spirit in action, setting aside suffering that the body be made comfortable. 

In many legends the intimate relationship between death and its query does not end with the body but, only begins. In voodoo the spirit is still connected to the body for seven days and a multitude of voodoo beliefs keep the body from being disposed of for up to a year during which it is kept above ground and protected in one way or another,  usually by being stored in a mausoleum. The southern Appalachian custom of sitting up with the dead was very likely created in the older days to protect the body from rodents and flies till it’s time of internment but, this is for the living.

Ecclesiastes 9:5 states “for the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.” Which is kind of a grim statement. The book Ecclesiastes itself endorses wisdom as a means of a well lived earthly life, but for the dead, they are not immediately forgotten and their memory is the spirit that continues to live in the hearts and minds of those left behind to attend their wake. Who we are when we die, however, is who we were, our final words, our last breath, our swan song and what is left for the dead is the journey to the beyond, paying Charon’s toll or, wandering the banks of the river Styx, finding favor with Baron Semedi or hoping that you lived the ecclesiastical life to find you name in the book thereof. Ultimately, the dead no longer know us as we carry the weight or splendor of who they were till we ourselves are forgotten. 

Salutation pending 

Johnny R Draper