“I don’t understand, sir. There was so much anguish and surprise. Why was it like that?”
“How is it where you come from?” Wim asked.
Rowan explained about the difference, the seeming acceptance and expectation that Death would visit, the care the family took of each other before and after Death came, and of the physicians or midwives that attended the death.
“Remember, I told you that Death likes to distract, to sneak in unawares because all that emotion gives it power. Power it doesn’t need, power that is destructive instead of transformative. The people in The Bakery, they forget about the business of life and death. They ignore death and don’t prepare for it, so after it comes, there is chaos and unexpected pain. They have forgotten family rituals that accepted and honored it, they try to rebuke death by ignoring it, and in ignoring it, give it destructive power instead.”
“How?” Rowan was curious.
“One way is in not attending to the Papers of Life before Death comes. If you don’t believe Death will visit, then the Papers aren’t written. When the Papers aren’t written identifying your family, your appointed second for you, and your holdings, the Magistrate of this sector can absorb it all. It is shared as the Magistrate sees fit, often leaving Family coffers empty.”
“Sometimes,” Wim continued “Death visits the younger people, and it is truly a shock. Few are prepared for that, though they could be,” he sighed. “It becomes very complicated when one is aged or quite ill, and they ignore Death. They don’t let the physician or midwife attend them and bear witness to their leaving.”
“Why is that?” asked Rowan. “Why is it more complicated when it is an aged person?”
“The aged or ill resist Death, and in doing so, rebuke the help they may have to ease their burdens and care for their families. When such a death is unattended, the constables and their deputies must investigate to assure that Death did not come due to conspired harm against them. They do not see the death as a sacred passage either, but as a potential wrongdoing that must be addressed.”
“There is so much uncertainty when people resist Death, then?" Rowan was astonished. "Papers aren’t in order that identify your people or to pass on properties, and now you tell me that family may be treated as criminals?”
“In some circumstances, yes. Avoidance of death comes at a cost.”
“What happens to family bonds, then? Who speaks for the Dead at the end?” Rowan was bewildered by this idea. "No one to speak for the Dead? No one to sing them into Wherever? What is the family, then?"
“That is part of the destruction and power that Death ingests, Rowan. The family is broken, the holdings taken, and no, there is no one to sing the Dead to Wherever”. Wim paused, as though trying to decide how much else he should share with Rowan.
“In the Forest, families still honor the power death has and recognize its coming is inevitable. When Death comes, it comes in as an ally. This – out here” Wim spread his arms wide to demonstrate “has become wild and unpredictable in part because the people will not agree to expect it’s coming. Prudence needed you to see how it is different, the pain that is caused not just from the dying, but from the lack of expectation, so that you can carry forward in your family the way to meet Death. You may or may not be able to tame Death out here, but you can learn what they have forgotten, so that your people do not forget it themselves. Keep Death an ally, do not allow distraction to empower death to come with cruelty.”
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