Content Warning: Death & dying of cancer are written out in detail, with the hope of helping others both write through such experiences, and to help prepare family and friends of those fighting cancer to know what may come in the end. As such, this may be a good post to skip or read while cuddling a cat/dog/pet.
Death is messy and inconsistent. If you read any books on death (I recommend Stiff by Mary Roach, and Unnatural Causes by Dr. Richard Shepherd) what you’ll come to learn quickly is that sometimes it’s smelly, sometimes it’s messy, sometimes it’s quick and sometimes it’s excruciatingly slow.
As a fantasy author, death is a recurring theme. I write necromancers, after all, and death comes with the territory. While I don’t believe that every detail in a book must be accurate in fiction, some things should be close to reality. There are many myths and mysteries about death. I think that in the U.S. and Canada in particular, we hide from it too much. It is inevitable, and we should be prepared for it. Fiction can help us do just that.
Writing Death
Regardless of what time period you’re writing in, or the world building required, there are a handful of staples regarding death. An end-of-life death doula may be an excellent pocket professional to interview (by pocket professional, I mean a professional you can keep on your phone and call/text/email with questions as they come up in your writing). These people deal with death and the rituals surrounding it intimately, making them the perfect people to reach out to. Be respectful of their time–you as a writer will be the lowest on their priority list, understandably! But if you write fantasy or science fiction, they are excellent resources for helping with your world building. If you are unable to speak with a death doula, research different cultural rituals surrounding death (both ancient and modern). That research is especially helpful when you’re considering whether there are different rituals for different types of deaths (accidental, murder, disease, war, etc).
Small details are meaningful, more so than giving a lot of grizzly descriptions. Dehydration is common in disease deaths, which means extremely chapped lips, rough/dry skin, and bad breath happen. Modern solutions for this are dry mouth swabs (such as biotene), which can be extrapolated upon for science fiction. A damp cloth would be the closest for fantasy writers, to be applied to lips and the tongue. Cups of water are to be avoided, as the digestive tract can be in organ failure earlier than other systems, creating the hazard of accidentally drowning the person.
After death care is important, such as cleaning the body. While not every person will evacuate their bowels upon death, depending on how they die there may be other fluids to clean up to help manage the smell. Dried drool, sweat, black bile, putrefaction, and rot all have unpleasant smells that can be carefully washed off (for writing reference: those give off different smells. Black bile, in my experience, smells like sickly sweet vomit). Posing a body should happen relatively quickly to help with both rigor and blood pooling. As gravity is the only force acting on the fluids in a body post-death, blood pools in the lowest points. That means skin will appear bruised in the lowest areas.
THE ANECDOTE: 3:00AM
She’s convulsing. When the brain dies from dehydration and malnourishment a lot of signals misfire. I left the room to grab more gauze to clean both the discharge from the constantly leaking biliary tube and the black bile coming from her mouth. When I came back, there was wailing and sobbing. My sister was on the phone with the rather useless hospice nurse, “Yes I’m sure, she’s dead, she has no pulse!” Three service dogs trying to do whatever they could to help—clearly understanding that one of the humans, one of their humans, was dead.
My service dog, who hates cuddling, sat and accepted cuddles and gave kisses to whoever needed them. He stayed at arms-length from me, kept back as I and three other mourners attended to cleaning the body.
Brittani died at about 3:00AM from stomach cancer, surrounded by people and animals who loved her.
It took a while for the hospice nurse to show up. It meant there was time for my sister to call the funeral home. For my friend to make sure that Brittani’s husband was outside the apartment and had a shoulder to sob on while myself and three others made Brittani look less like a corpse. Smell less like a corpse. Clean the bile from her lips and face, clean and cover the biliary tube, wash her down as best as possible and remove the pillows and blankets stained by death. Someone replaced the blankets. Someone else brushed out Brittani’s hair. We straightened her limbs, I closed her mouth and closed her eyes.
She didn’t look like she was sleeping. But the suffering was gone, and when the funeral home arrived they could move her to the gurney without having to break any limbs to fit in the body bag. Rigor doesn’t set in right away, but we weren’t sure how long they would take to get to the apartment. The funeral home was gentle and respectful, a welcome contrast from the hospice nurse. The nurse arrived before the funeral home and then had the audacity to comment on how quiet everyone was. I know there were more than a few people tempted to respond with “Yeah, it’s like someone died.”
Brittani Marinsky, 1986-2020.
Brittani was a woman of stories and struggles. She documented every step of her chronic illness long before cancer came on the horizon. Once diagnosed, she called the cancer ‘Hei Hei’ and refused to let it be mysterious or powerful. She was a teacher, her greatest gift was her passion for learning. She taught many about how to enjoy life. And I don’t imagine she’d mind teaching about the realities of death. Brittani never wanted disability, disease, or death to be frightening to those around her. With utmost care, she always promoted education.
Thank you, Brittani. I’ll never mix up “bison” and “buffalo” ever again.
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L.J. Stanton’s novel, THE DYING SUN, THE GODS CHRONICLE: BOOK 1, debuted in June 2020. It won Fan Favorite in Fantasy at the NYC Big Book Awards. Stanton is a founding member of SCRIBE’S JOURNEY podcast, AFTER THE… talk show, and a co-owner of Sword & Board LLC.