In a historically poor area, “leaving enough” required advance planning. “There was the ‘cheese of the dead,'” explains Zufferey. “Everyone had a wheel of cheese so that they had something to serve at their funeral.”
“Every evening around 6 p.m., before retiring for the night, Mrs. Ito closed the paper screen in the window. Then in the morning, after her alarm woke her at 5:40 a.m., she slid the screen back open.
‘If it’s closed,’ Mrs. Ito told her neighbor, ‘it means I’ve died.'”
“I searched for my own name and realized that I have died 265 times, first in 1952, most recently in 2013 (the most recent year for which data is available).”
Today, I was reminded of Thomas Lynch’s excellent book The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade. Lynch is an undertaking by profession, but an excellent, excellent essayist. I first came across his writing while in graduate school, and I found them incredibly moving. I find myself going back to this book at least once a year, and always find great joy in reading his words.