Population: 485; Culture Essay
Michael Perry introduces several themes throughout Population: 485. Love, pain and acceptance are all touched upon in his memoir, but one that seems to stick out and is brought up again and again is death. As a volunteer firefighter, most of the connections he makes with the people of his community are caused by responding to emergency accident and fire calls- many of which result in death. In our culture, and every culture, death is an inevitable fact of life. We all, at some point in our lives, are going to encounter the death of someone close to us.
Whether it will be a family member, friend or ourselves, young or old, it is going to happen and we will have to face it. Death affects everyone differently and the way we cope with loss varies with every person and with every culture. When the majority of us think of death, we see someone old and sick, frail and weak. While mourning the loss of a loved one is never easy, regardless of age or cause of death, losing a young friend or family member is an even more challenging reality to face. It is often the unexpected losses that don’t make sense. We ask ourselves “Why? ” “Why did this happen? and try to bring meaning to the tragedy. “Surely we can’t die just because we hit a patch of pebbles on a curve. Surely there is preordination in the pea gravel. We are creatures of myth, hungry for metaphor and allegory, but most of all, hungry for sense. ” (p. 132). This is one of the ways our culture copes with death. We refuse to believe that a young person could die so quickly and meaninglessly and we are swift to find a reason behind it all. In reality though, there is no answer. Seven years ago a close friend of mine died due to injuries caused by a motorcycle accident. He was twenty years old.
It was a painful experience that left me questioning my faith and asking why such a good person was taken away at such a young age. I did try to find reasoning behind it, but never really came up with an answer. I cried for weeks, for hours at a time. I couldn’t stop thinking about how real this was, how I was never going to see his face or hear his voice again. So many things in life he didn’t get a chance to experience. I longed to go back in time to find a way to prevent his final outcome, but I soon realized there was nothing I could do. His death brought many people close together.
We had huge gatherings, for a couple months after he passed, with all of his friends and family. We told stories and talked about our greatest memories we had with our friend, laughed and cried together. We supported each other, shared our feelings and listened to one another. It was our way to cope with our loss. We soon realized that the world doesn’t stop for people to grieve, so after a while, the parties died down and we all got back to our normal routines. Life forces you to get it together and to move on and time heals all wounds. I now hold my friend as a memory and know that I will see him again someday.
We often see this in our culture. People come together to help each other through hard times. Emotional support and counseling are other ways people in our culture cope with death. This memory has been triggered by the story Michael Perry tells of Tracy Rimes. Tracy was killed in a motor vehicle accident while taking a corner too fast or too wide. She was just a teenager, not even graduated from high school. Parts of her story are brought up again and again by the author throughout the book. I think this incident got to him and he had a hard time coping with this one. Maybe it was because she was so young with a lot of life ahead of her.
Maybe it marks a milestone or turning point for him. “Today we had tragedy, but it was our tragedy, and we dealt with it not only as public citizens, but also as friends and neighbors… To feel at home is a rare, precious thing, and I began to feel at home that day. ” (p. 16). It was the day he made his connection and found his place. Maybe he relates aspects of the incident to his own life. In chapter one there is a paragraph where he is talking about the accident and he describes how the girl was “pinned in silence” after the violent squalling, glass exploding, rubber tearing, steel tumbling and then just stillness. As if peace is the only answer to destruction… The girl is terribly, terribly alone in a beautiful, beautiful world. ” (p. 4). He describes the land and nature so much in the book with such life and love, and also comes off as kind of an outsider always looking in, trying to find a place to belong. Does he too feel terribly, terribly alone in a beautiful, beautiful world? I think this is another way to cope with death. Find a positive outcome from a tragedy. Death can make a person stronger. It can make someone open there eyes to life and not take it for granted.
It can make someone open their doors a little wider to friends and family and let people in. Michael shares a lot of stories throughout his book that involve the unexpected deaths he has encountered. In fact, he has seen a dead person so many times he says, “I can look at you and know exactly what you would look like dead. ” (p. 128). I can relate to this in a way. While I have never imagined what the person sitting next to me will look like when they’re dead, I have also seen many a corpse. It comes as part of the package when you choose a career in healthcare.
I have worked as a respiratory therapist for four years now in a hospital. We respond to all the codes and traumas that come in and are basically responsible for a person’s airway. We also manage the ventilators and occasionally have to “pull the tube” when it has been determined that the ventilator is just prolonging the dying process, if that is what the family wishes. At first, it was hard for me to deal with the situations. I would go home still thinking about that pale, lifeless body. I couldn’t get the voices out of my head of the family screaming the patients name and crying and praying.
It all got to me. I cried the first few times, but then I quickly learned that you have to somehow detach yourself from the emotional aspect of the situation, sort of take your mind somewhere else for a minute than get back to reality, like the author seems to do in his writing. Now, after seeing so many, a dead body doesn’t even phase me. It’s no big deal anymore to respond to a code, perform CPR, suction nasty stuff from an endotracheal tube that’s deep in the throat of a patient covered in blood and bowel… and then go eat lunch. Sounds gross, but it’s our job. You just learn to block certain things out.
I think Michael uses his ability and love for writing as a way to cope with death. He seems like sort of a loner, maybe he doesn’t feel comfortable talking with someone about what he’s thinking or feeling, so he writes stories and anecdotes about them. The way he starts a story of one his calls, than jumps to a completely different subject, and then later returns to finish the story maybe is a reflection of another way he handles death. It’s like he takes a break for a minute and shifts his thoughts somewhere else, so that he can return to the facts of the story, and not be interrupted by emotions.
I think writing or keeping a journal with our own stories, thoughts and emotions is another way our culture copes with death too. I think death is an aspect of our culture that we don’t much like to talk about, or think about. We know that we are all going to someday die, and that everyone we know will too someday pass, but it is much more comfortable to take for granted tomorrow. Death is something that could potentially happen to anyone, at any given moment and I think it is our avoidance of death that creates such grief when the death of a loved one comes unexpectedly.
For me, it’s the unknown part of the afterlife that scares me. That and the thought of not being with my children. In the book, Michael Perry shares his own feelings of dying. He brings the reader to the woods, where he feels that sleeping in the presence of the trees and in the dirt joins him with the earth and gives him a sense of what it is to be holy. “I have come to think of my sleeps in the forest as a rehearsal for burial…” (p. 140). He gives the impression that he is prepared for death and that we should ponder upon the fact that it is coming.
Not how or where or why, just the simple truth that we will be gone someday and it may seem less discomforting if we just accept the fact and “give it a nod now and then. ” (p. 140). Death can get to be a very sensitive subject in our world today. It means so many diverse things to different people and cultures and is handled in your own way by each individual. For the most part, I think coping with the loss of a loved one comes down to a person’s individual beliefs, traditions, and culture. It is a personal choice whether or not to prepare for and accept death.
Michael Perry brings the subject to your attention several times throughout the book, almost forcing you to think about death. “Be grateful for death, the one great certainty in an uncertain world. Be thankful for the spirit smoke that lingers for every candle gone out. ” (p. 142). We don’t know when or why or how, but death is coming. To you, to me, to everyone someday. It’s a scary thought, but I hope I can build an acceptance to the inevitable fact of life and be at peace with death when it knocks on my door, before it’s too late.
