Is Death Meant to be a Secret?

Elle Angelina
Nov 2 · 4 min read

Don’t ask, don’t tell. That seems to be the pervasive culture around death, at least here, in the upper, icier regions of North America, or at least that’s how I’ve experienced it. When someone dies, you dare not ask how it happened. To do so would be considered rude or invasive or pointless, or a combination of all those things, as though you were breaking with the hard and fast rules of some 18th century etiquette book. And maybe…

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