Health and Medicine

Look through these thoughts on death, noting some of the many words and expressions that may be required on this delicate subject.

Home Burial Causes Anger

A family who buried a relative in their back garden have angered neighbours.

Residents of a care home were shocked to see the coffin of Daniel Stevens lowered into a grave in Chesterfield Road, Maplethorpe. Staff at the Adamson care home, which overlooks the garden, want the body reburied in a cemetery.

Geraldine Thomson, the manager of the home, said: “Someone sent me a letter last week to say the funeral would happen on Thursday. I thought it was a joke.

There were about 200 people in the garden for the service. When I called the police they said they couldn’t do anything to stop it because it wasn’t illegal.”

Maplethorpe council said it was not able to prevent a burial on private land as long as certain rules were followed.

4) Answer the questions:

Why do you think nobody sang the final song at the funeral of George Ramsbottom?

What is Maplethorpe council going to do?

Was Frank Ramsbottom right to make the speech?

“You should never speak ill of the dead.” Do you agree?

Can you bury someone in their garden in your country?

Can you scatter their ashes wherever you like?

How would you feel if your next-door neighbours buried their grandmother in their back garden?

Most of our relatives are dead. It’s a big subject. We all die. The priest says we have gone to meet our Maker – gone to a better place. Close relatives say we have passed away. Schoolboys say someone has kicked the bucket. Legally speaking, we are referred to as deceased.

There are a hundred and one ways to die. Most people would like to die from natural causes – of old age. Many don’t, as you can see below.

Causes of Death among males aged 20 to 44: accidents, heart diseases, cancer, drugs, homicide, suicide.

Accidental death covers many things, of course. A fair proportion of those above will have been knocked down in a road accident, many will have died at the wheel of their car. A few will have died in plane crashes, some will have drowned at sea. Some will have been burnt to death in a fire, a number gassed, rather more electrocuted. A lot no doubt suffocated or were asphyxiated in an airless room or fire, one or two will have choked to death on a fish-bone.

There are a hundred and one ways of being killed. If you are an important celebrity, you can be assassinated. Remember the assassination of JFK and the subsequent murder of this suspected assassin? You can be stabbed to death with a sword or knife. You can be shot with a gun like Bonnie and Clyde. You can be poisoned with something you didn’t order in your dinner. You can be strangled with a piece of string or scarf. The Boston Strangler might ring a bell?

War brings with it a language of its own: missing, presumed dead; fatally wounded; he laid down his life for his country; she sacrificed herself for the sake of her comrades. In wartime, and even sometimes in peacetime, one hears of massacres and slaughter, with hundreds of victims and often no survivors.

There are other ways of being killed, apart from being murdered or being killed in action. Capital punishment is one of them. Many countries still retain the death penalty for serious offenders. If you are sentenced to death and are not pardoned or reprieved at a later date, then you will be executed; perhaps hanged – with a rope, or electrocuted – in the electric chair, or guillotined – remember the French Revolution, or shot – by a firing squad, or garotted or beheaded or …. But enough is enough, I hear you cry. Agreed. If I could just remained you, though, that a couple of thousand years ago you might have been crucified – on a cross, or stoned to death, like some Christian martyrs.

There are a hundred and one ways of committing suicide. Many of the horrors above you can do to yourself, but the most popular method is to take an overdose of drugs like Marilyn Monroe and too many others.

Is euthanasia murder? Is voluntary euthanasia the same as suicide? Are they all crimes or do you believe that mercy-killing can bring welcome release?

The statistics deal only with men aged twenty-five to forty-four. Twenty-five is very young, but death can come earlier. The infant mortality rate in some countries is as high as one in three. Despite the advances in medical science, many babies are stillborn, and the number of inexplicable cot deaths continues to give cause for alarm.

For many people, all these figures are somewhat overshadowed by the fact that millions are dying of hunger, starving to death. Some are dying of thirst, many more of malnutritio n. Is there a bloodbath waiting round the corner, do you think? A holocaust waiting for the spark?

A lot of things have to be done after death. An inquest may have to be held to determine how we died. This might involve a post-mortem or autopsy. Then, most of the arguments are made by a firm of funeral directors – or undertakers.

Much depends on whether we have chosen to be buried or cremated. For burial, we will be concerned with a coffin, in which to place the body, a hearse, in which to transport it, a grave, in which the coffin will finally be placed, and a cemetery (or graveyard), in which the grave will be dug. For cremation, more simply, an urn to hold the ashes, and a crematorium to hold the service. In either case, one might expect wreaths to be brought to the funeral service and an epitaph to be engraved on our headstones. Then it will be time for the will to be read; death duties may have to be paid; our heir will inherit our estate; our widow or widower will no doubt be in mourning for a long time to come.

We are unlikely to have a tomb. Napoleon has a tomb in Paris, but that honour is reserved for people like him. Nor will our corpses be laid to rest in a mausoleum. It is extremely unlikely that someone will compose a requiem in our honour or build a statue to our memory, and almost certain that we shall not lie in state for even a day. An obituary in The Times would be asking a lot. No, I think the most we can hope for is that someone might recognize our talents posthumously and dedicate something to us then. RIP, as we say, or rest in peace.

2) Guess the word due to the definition:

a person who murders someone important

a large decorative grave with a space inside

be unable to breathe air; dying or killing in this way

to kill by pressing on the throat with the hands

someone put to death for their beliefs

poor condition of health resulting from lack of food

to burn the body of a dead person at a funeral ceremony

an arrangement of flowers such as those given at a funeral

a statement of how you want your things to be shared after your death

a piece of music written for a dead person.

Дата добавления: 2014-12-29