How do historians relate to death and dying? Our profession, after all, is almost entirely (with a very small percentage of exceptions) about those who have already passed beyond the maya curtain - escaped the cave - fled their mortal coil - etc. etc.
Am I supposed to be encouraged by those who pass in bravery, or at peace, or as paradigms of wisdom? Am I supposed to learn my lesson from those whose utopian visions included immortality for themselves or others? Am I supposed to harden myself, scold myself over the visceral reaction I feel when I see photographs of my architects' gravesites and remember that these people, whose hopes and dreams fill the vast majority of my reading, are now gone?
Is the historian the lonely child who comes up with imaginary friends for himself, at the cost of ostracizing himself from the living? Or is he a sensitive, an individual in touch with his Zeitgeist, but with sympathy to Those Who Have Peaced™, and can approach (if never reach) a reconciliation between the two?
I think the empathic connections I pretend to make with dead people are probably on the unprofessional side of things. But seriously - the phenomenon of death is weirdly different in this country. In any given cemetery there are huge pictures, not just of famous people, but of anyone who has passed! (Look at the background graves in this image).
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