Remember your death.

That's what a memento mori is supposed to help you do. It's a death memo.

John Hardy posts a link to a study of death and photography in the 19th century with a fascinating observation:

In his 1955 article, "The Pornography of Death," Gorer points out that death is treated in twentieth century society much like sex was treated in the nineteenth century. The subject is avoided, especially with children, or spoken of in euphemisms if it cannot be avoided. Death now, like sex then, is hidden, an event which takes place behind closed doors. The opposite is also true: in the nineteenth century, death was discussed as freely and openly as sex is today. If, as Freud has postulated, society is founded upon--and defined by--its repressions, our society has undergone a psychological about-face since the nineteenth century.

Click through this link. You don't have to read it if you don't want to, but scan the pictures (except if you're a mother of young children - nothing gruesome, it just might hit too close to home for you. There are a lot of pictures of children laid out for funerals.

Have you thought about your death lately? What will happen after you die? How does your impending death shape your decisions today?

Some of you received an email I sent out a year or more ago that was my own funeral address. Wish I lived like that.