As I’ve been talking about language at the end of life, one thing I have learned to do is alert people to the nature of the topic at the start of a presentation. After some years, I think I’ve figured it out.
I learned the hard way. Early on, I was presenting my analysis of the William Osler study online and saw one person drop off the call. Later they emailed me: I just lost my father, the topic surprised me, I had to take a break. That’s when I realized I owed it to my audiences to take better care of them.
The next time I spoke it was in person, in Amsterdam, to a group of scholars. (The first audience was an academic one too.) I was speaking about first words but last ones would inevitably come up, and death and dying, which I signaled this to the audience. They were older, many of them retired, which may have had something to do with what happened next: a woman came up and asked in an irritated tone why I had warned them. “Did I think,” she lashed, “we couldn’t take it?” Maybe she thought that I thought that older people didn't want to talk about death. Probably some don't. I don't think it's an intrinsic preference, though. That's not why I said it though. I can't help it if people don't want to be cared for.
Now, in my prefatory remarks, I tell this story, then I say to people that I think they can take it, AND that I’m going to take care of them. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.
I learned a lot from the Q&A session that I did at Planet Word for the book’s official launch with Britt Oates, the director of public programs. She was the one who delivered the framing: in this talk, difficult topics will come up, and if you need to take care of yourself, definitely take the time to do that. She came up with this "take the time," wording, which was perfect.
Now I always say something along those same lines. You knew the topic ahead of time, you knew from the title what I’d be talking about. But you can’t know ahead of time how you’re going to feel about things, so if you find that you need to take care of yourself, definitely take whatever time you need, do whatever you need to do. Then I tell the story about warnings. Then I say, it’s not like death and dying is pushed in your face, it’s very respectful, but it’s there. And I know you can take it, and I’m going to take care of you. (I formulated this quite well the other day at the Belgian Anglicists’ meeting, where I gave a plenary lecture; I’ll transcribe what I said when I get the video.)
It’s funny how this is politicized, though. At the Texas Book Festival, I told the moderator that I wanted to do a “trigger warning.” Oh no, she said, we can’t do that. Some people have really strong reactions against those. I felt really strongly that the talk should be framed with care and suggested that I just not call it a “trigger warning.” Sure, yes, that’s fine, she said. And I used the Planet Word framing, which worked quite well.
I’ve also learned from people’s questions just how much grief and loss accompanies people to book talks and presentations; it’s a lot. People have shared some quite intense, moving dynamics — not just words, but whole scenes, very intimate and harrowing. I feel quite often that I am ministering, or that there’s a ministering to be done. And if I can do it, I do. The Planet Word session was very emotional. One person came up afterwards and remarked on the intimacy of the questions and comments. “I don’t think people would have felt safe to do that if she hadn’t said that about taking care at the beginning,” he said. That convinced me that I always needed to do it.
Consent is a funny thing, though. Back in August, I saw Enny Das, a linguist at Radboud, do a meditation based on the Buddhist cemetery meditation at the Association for the Study of Death and Society conference in Utrecht. Before she started, she told people there are some vivid, even gruesome details, and she encouraged people to leave if they anticipated being disturbed by this. No one moved. Then she said, if you want to be here, raise your hands. Everyone raised their hands. Then she said, if you find that you are disturbed in the meditation itself, feel free to leave. (I can’t remember if anyone did or not.)
What struck me is that in a room full of death studies scholars, at a death studies conference, it was still a good thing, an ethical thing, to frame the session in that way. Indeed, it felt safer for her having done that. I appreciated her care.
