Bernard was already across the Channel, surrounded by marching bands and dancing girls. Once there, he boarded the ferry to France and joined a party of war veterans who took him under their wing.Īs soon as the care staff realised he was missing, a frantic police search began. Now free, he tottered down to the railway station nearly a mile away, and took the train to Portsmouth. He got up early and put on his best suit, making sure to pin on his wartime medals, then covered his outfit with a grey raincoat and sneaked out of the home. What could he do?īernard came up with a cunning plan. But there was a problem: he was trapped in a care home in Hove, without permission to travel.

The former British naval officer was determined to go to Normandy to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings with other veterans. On a summer’s morning in 2014, 89-year-old Bernard Jordan decided to escape. But Roman Krznaric wonders if we’re getting the message Now it’s used to sell trainers, T-shirts and a carefree lifestyle (#YOLO). We should welcome these daily reminders that death is all around us, that life is fragile, and that we will all die one day.Carpe diem, meaning ‘seize the day,’ is one of the most powerful philosophical ideals. Memento mori needs to be reintroduced to our way of life. Death has become very separate from life for most of us, causing a more difficult grieving process.

Now, our dying relatives are placed in nursing homes or hospitals, kept away from people going about their days. Children would still play and run around, all while their grandmother lay dead in the center of the room. Often the deceased relative would be left in the open casket for multiple days, so all who wanted to could pay their respects. One anecdote described how funerals used to be held in the family living room or parlor room. A part that stuck out to me in this book, that I think will resonate with everyone reading this, is that death is no longer a part of life in America. It speaks a lot to bioethics and aging, which to me, a geriatric social worker, was extremely interesting. A while ago I read a book titled Knocking on Heaven’s Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death by Katy Butler. Our modern society, especially here in America, seems to be lacking this remembrance and normalization of death. Many world cultures have had or still do have a way of welcoming death into everyday life, helping individuals and communities to prepare for the inevitable and to cherish the moments we have in this life. However, this healthy fascination with death and dying is also reflected in the Mexican festival, Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead). Memento mori has most prominently been displayed over the years in funeral art and architecture, particularly in Europe. The Vikings attribute a proverb to Odin, the God of War, that states “Animals die, friends die, and thyself, too, shall die but one thing I know that never dies, the tales of the one who died.”

The Ancient Greek philosopher, Plato, pondered on whether proper practice of philosophy is only about dying and being dead. The Latin phrase memento mori is deeply rooted in the histories of many great civilizations. The real reason we carry memento mori items is not to keep us in constant fear of death or dying, but to remind us that life is fragile–that we need to make the most of every moment we have and take all opportunities we have to live our lives to the fullest extent possible. While it sounds very dark and morbid, that isn’t the true purpose of carrying a memento mori item. A lot of our products are listed as memento mori objects, small items or tokens that are meant as a reminder or a warning of death.

Carpe diem means