The Prevailing Culture Of Death

Death, But Not As We Knew It

Sinead Murphy

On Saturday 21st September, my neighbour collapsed and died while walking the hills of Northumberland. The coroner’s report confirmed only that she had had a heart-attack. She was fifty-one years old.

Little ensued among those living on our short street. No expressions of outrage at how young our neighbour was. No speculation about the reason for her sudden demise. No show of disbelief. No clamour of refusal. No real discussion at all.

As if it is the most natural thing in the world for a fit and healthy woman of fifty-one to collapse and die and for the extraordinary reach of medical science to be unable to explain why.

A couple of weeks later, England lost to Greece in the Nations League football competition. The Greek players marked their victory by holding up the shirt of a teammate who had died in a swimming pool a few days before. My son called my attention to the TV – ‘Look at this,’ he said. ‘You’re interested in young people dying.’ 

As if it’s a niche thing – like following the Finnish Curling Championship. As if it’s an idiosyncracy, to be interested in young people dying.

Latest research announces that one in two of us will get cancer. Since when? And why? Defibrillators are mounted on the walls of primary schools. For whom? And why? No one’s asking. Or only a very few are asking.

Death is among us now in a strange new way. Ambling through everyday life. Casually. Without any fuss.

What is going on with the curious manner in which death now saunters our streets, woven with life so closely and so companionably that it is hardly possible to tell them apart?

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