Sheena: Hi everybody! Welcome to our first video of So Random and Weird. And I'm Sheena, today's host.
Sarah: Bye! I'm Sarah. ⁓
Sheena: And today I am covering Oddities and Curiosities with my spin last week. So this is definitely going to be ⁓ a little personal just because my life has been around so much death. And we'll say hello to Twinkles. Say hello next month. Next month she'll be 18. So
Sarah: you Woo! We're a little guest star. ⁓ my gosh. Bunky, our first cat lived till 19. And I think the vet said that in cat years, was like 143 or something. And I was like, that's phenomenal. That's pretty old for a cat. I don't think I'd want to live to be 143. I've outlived everybody. But like.
Sheena: Yeah. Yeah, my day more. No, no. My Dane was nineteen.
Sarah: Yeah. Well.
Sheena: And he's been gone for almost a year now.
Sarah: I spunky was definitely, I'm glad he was able to pass when he did. When he died, my dad was actually helping him to go to the bathroom. Like he couldn't go. And the vet, I mean, the vet said, you know, he's not in pain. He's not in pain. He's not hurting. ⁓ And so he actually showed my dad how to like,
Sheena: Mm.
Sarah: squeeze his bowels, like his abdomen, his, you know, to help express, yeah, and to get, so that I can't imagine, my dad is not a big cat fan, but that he did that for Spunky, that he, that he, you know, I mean, I thought that was a really, that was a really awesome thing for my dad to do. ⁓ but I am glad that, you know, he had passed when he did, cause
Sheena: Mm-hmm. Yeah, to express them. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah: That's, I would not want anyone helping me to go to the bathroom. I already told my kids that if I'm like on a, you know, if I'm like in a diaper or bedpan, just end it all. I'm not a big fan of public bathrooming, going in front of people, having people see me. Anyway.
Sheena: Ha ha ha. Yeah. Yeah. But
Sarah: I don't know how we got on that topic. Never mind.
Sheena: Well, ⁓ because today we are handling the the ⁓ phot photography of the dead.
Sarah: I was hoping you were going to do that.
Sheena: Because, you know, ⁓ it is now in this day and age, it is very much like the old ones are are oddities and now it's a curiosity. So ⁓ you know, I understand that this is like ri can be really touchy for people. So I just wanna to warn you now, you know, we are gonna be talking about deaf and Part of the reason why Twinkles is probably coming up here because she's my little nursemaid and anytime I there's something sensitive, she has to be right by me. So I just want to give everybody that option that you guys don't have to listen. You don't have to, you know, you guys can skip this one or save it for another time. Yeah. But for me. It's a sensitive topic, but at the same time, pretty much every year that my parents were married, somebody died. And that included two of my own siblings. So death is something that I am very comfortable around. It's not something that sometimes it takes the breath out of me, but very rarely does it. It's usually only when it's like the really sudden deaths, like my own father's death. ⁓ because that was, you know, suicide. So anyway, so we'll go ahead and we'll get started on this. So
Sarah: Unexpected.
Sheena: And the thing is too is that this subject is quite deeply and profoundly human as well is because it's something that we will all experience at one time or another. So I want you to imagine something. ⁓ you're standing in an antique shop, one of those good ones, the kind that smells like old paper and cedar and mystery and not like must and like grandpa's moldy old cologne. Yeah.
Sarah: Yeah, the old smell.
Sheena: Nasty smell, you know. And you pick up an old photograph. It's sepia toned, mounted on thick cardstock, a family portrait, a mother, father, two children, and then you look closer. One of the children isn't sitting up, they're propped up. Their eyes are closed, and there are flowers in their hand. That child is dead. And whoever these people were, whoever the family was. They dressed their child in their finest clothes, arranged them with care, and paid a photographer to come to their home so they could remember, so they could hold on to a face that was already leaving them. Today, like I said, we're talking about death photography, Victorian post postmortem portraits, the cultural t traditions around photographing the dead worldwide, and how the practice never really actually went away. It just changed. Because grief doesn't go away. The need to hold on doesn't go away. So let's get into it. So first let's define what we're talking about because death photography is actually kind of a big umbrella term. You know, it can cover everything from, you know, any photography that's taken of a deceased person, be that, you know, within the tradition, a postmortem, and as a keepsake. There's morning photography, which includes photos of grieving families, funeral arrangements and burial practices. And then there's what we might call documentation photography, which is your images taken for medical, legal, or journalistic purposes. And so we're gonna focus mostly on the first two, the intimate personal grief driven practice of photograph photographing the people you've lost, and to understand why this happens and why it makes it complete sense. But we need to talk about context. Photography was invented in the late 1830s. The Dragotype process was introduced publicly in eighteen thirty-nine, and within years, portrait studios were popping up everywhere. For the first time in human history, ordinary people, not just the elite who could commission oil paintings, can have a likeness of someone they love. Now here's where it gets important. In the mid-1800s, Child mortality was devastating. We're talking roughly forty to fifty percent of children in industrialized ⁓ countries died before the age of five. Diseases we now vaccinate against scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough, smallpox, and measles, were constant, merciless presences in life, everyday life. And so not to mention also, children worked as well. And they were the ones that got into the the machines because they had little fingers.
Sarah: Well, and that, yeah, yeah. They had, could crawl up on machines. They had the agility to be able to do that. So they were used to do that. They were used to do the dangerous things and they lost fingers and hands and limbs extremities. mean, you know, girls had to have their hair short because their hair would get stuck in the machinery and it would pull their hair out and off their scalp and pull their scalp off. It was Absolutely. This is why we have child labor laws. This is absolutely horrific. What these industrialists were willing to do to children. And that's why people had a lot of children because of infant mortality rates. mean, you know, they're probably it was very rare to be in a family where you didn't lose a child, unfortunately, even in a mother in childbirth. So, yeah.
Sheena: Right. Yes, and so for many families, the only only photograph that is ever taken of a child was after their child died. Not because the parents were morbid, but because photography was expensive, sessions required sitting still for extended periods, and you often didn't think to document someone until they were gone. Because if you ever see those old, old photos where there's just one person And whether it's child or grown up sitting and there everybody else around them seems very fuzzy. That's why is because the way that the photos were able to be taken, you had to sit there for hours maybe. And so of course it makes sense that the person who passed is the only one that you're going to be able to see clearly in this photograph. Because if you look at the original ⁓ the very first photo. You can see a blurry line of where people would be walking, but the city itself, like the building, stayed the same.
Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, you had to sit still for several minutes and that was very hard for children. they, ⁓ being a Savoring actor, ⁓ was a facility in Gettysburg at the time ⁓ and they did old fashioned pictures like on the glass plates. Really neat, which is what... You know, they didn't have negatives back then. The pictures actually were taken on glass plates. So they were also very fragile and glass was expensive too. So once again, why pictures were expensive. But anyway, ⁓ so if you were standing, they actually brought in things like that went up behind you and like a grip that gripped you at your neck so that your neck didn't move. So you had to stay in this position. ⁓
Sheena: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: which was interesting, I thought. ⁓ But yeah, it's got
Sheena: Yeah. Also you wonder why people don't smile in those photos. Imagine
Sarah: Well, and also, wasn't, I mean, some people did smile, wasn't, pictures really weren't a vanity. It was more like, ⁓ you know, it was more like a, it wasn't like a, ⁓ cheese smile. You know, it was more like a, this is a solemn, you know, but I mean, not everyone, mean, some people did smile, but it was also a very serious and solemn time. And that's why people were like, you know,
Sheena: Is it onion?
Sarah: more serious face.
Sheena: so we'll first start off with the Victorian mourning culture. So to understand that, Victorian death photography, you have to understand that Victorians were not shy about death the way that we are today. They were obsessed with it, but obsessed in a way that was organized, ritualized, and communal. Queen Victoria herself set the cultural tone. When Prince Albert died in eighteen sixty one, she went into mourning so profound and so public that it lasted until her own death in nineteen ⁓ one, forty years later. She slept with a cast of his hand beside her bed. She had his cloth his clothes laid out every morning as if he still might dress the next day. She carried his photograph everywhere. Under Victoria's influence, Morning became a full cultural system with rules, rituals, and a robust economy around it. There was morning jewelry and there were morning dress codes. Widows were expected to wear full black widow weeds for up to two years with specific fabrics, specific jewelry, and a gradual progression back towards color governed by elaborate social protocol. In fact, I remember where it's like in the last couple of months of your mourning ⁓ that you were finally able to wear like lilac purple.
Sarah: Yeah, my friend, like I said, I was a Civil War reenactor and my friend Mariana, she had beautiful outfits and she had third year morning, a third year morning dress, was gray, but it also had a little bit of like golden color in there too. You know, like it was, it was really neat. It was just so beautiful. yeah, Widowsweeds. Women had to wear black the first year or two. And then the third year morning, they could go gray. And a little bit of color. But mostly, it was still gray. But yeah, it was fascinating. Men had arm bands. And I don't think they had to mourn as long. Women did.
Sheena: Yep, and men had armbands.
Sarah: I don't remember men's morning rituals. I think they was like maybe a year. think. I don't know. But yeah, women, it three years.
Sheena: Yeah, and then there was also morning cards, which is essentially a Victorian death announcement, often beautifully printed with black borders and the details of the deceased. Households hung black crepe on their doors to signal a death, mirrors were covered, clocks were stopped at the moment of death, which is also a bit of a ritual for that art as well. ⁓ so which is kinda interesting, you know, and bringing in an old tradition of covering the mirrors, stopping clocks. So in this core culture of formalized public material grief, photography arrived. Of course they photographed the dead. Of course they did. Postmortem photography became so normalized that there were professional photographers who ⁓ specialized in it. They advertised, they had rates, they would come to your home. The phrase commonly used in the industry at the time was taken from life, a phrase that tells you everything about how they framed the work. Not taken after death. It was taken from life, as if the photograph was catching something before it fully slipped away. The aesthetics of these images were intentional and carefully considered. Photographers and families worked together to present the deceased as peacefully asleep rather than dead. Children were often posed in their beds, surrounded by favorite toys or flowers. Adults might be seated in a chair positioned. At a table, even arranged outdoors and garden settings. Some of the most haunting images are the ones where the living are posed alongside the dead, parents holding the infants, siblings arranged around a brother or sister. When you looked at these photos, you could understand immediately that this was a family that was trying to hold themselves together around an absence that is already consuming them.
Sarah: And sometimes, and I'm sorry, you may say this and I apologize if I ruined something, but what gets me is sometimes when the family members are being hidden in the picture, you know, they're being, do you talk about that? I'm sorry. I, am I, what, what really gets me is like the parents will be holding the child, but they're, covered with a blanket or
Sheena: Mm-hmm. Yes, okay. No, no. You're fine. Mm.
Sarah: a tablecloth or something to make it look like the child is sitting by themselves. ⁓ Which obviously is not true. They're being held up by their parents because they're deceased. The child is deceased. ⁓ And that's, that's to me, that's eerie. I mean, I think I'd rather have had a mother there holding her child than hiding and pretending the child is alive. whatever. mean, I guess.
Sheena: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: I don't know what the reasoning was behind like certain, you know, like why we're doing this instead of this. If it was, you know, parent preference, I don't know. But ⁓ yeah, those are weird pictures. I feel that it's creepy in my mind.
Sheena: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I don't I'd I'd I would rather just be like with the flowers or in the garden, you know, cropped up in a chair.
Sarah: Yeah, I mean, don't understand. I mean, guess maybe if they wanted a picture of what, this is what my child looked like when they were alive because they want to remember the past. OK, maybe I get that. I don't know. But I mean, it's hiding the parent underneath a sheet or a blanket or a tablecloth to pretend. mean, and obviously the parents there. mean.
Sheena: Hm.
Sarah: Yes, I mean, you notice the bulge of the parent of the shape. ⁓ I mean, and they did well with hiding. I mean, they did well hiding it, but you can still tell. But yeah, it's. On. But there's also another thing that freaked me out. Was I saw a death picture of a family. Mother. Father. children I think two or three children I think ⁓ it was a murder-suicide and I think the wife I forget if it was husband or the wife that killed the other like the spouse and the children and then themselves I think it was because I remember I think was the wife that actually killed everyone else and then killed herself I remember that they were talking about having to like hide her head because of she was shot in the head. ⁓ It was very, but I mean, they were all together in one casket. And I'm thinking, would the other spouse really have wanted to be buried with someone who had killed them and their children?
Sheena: Mm-hmm. Mm, yeah.
Sarah: I mean, if my husband decided to, you know, pop me off and my children, and then himself, I'm sorry, I really don't want to be buried with him. You know, taking my life and my children's life is penis and cowardly. You know, I'm...
Sheena: Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't mean to laugh but there is a family photo that is of me, my mom, and my dad. And I was very young. ⁓ and my mom was pregnant. ⁓ I I don't I know it it was either Stephanie or my brother Jason, ⁓ that she was pregnant with. So, you know, because it was only me who was in the photo and The way that this photo looks, I'll have to find it and send it to you. But I mean, everybody just looks like you know, it's like this well, not just that, but just like if that was the family photo that they put in the the ⁓ in the newspaper of like the you know, family homicide, you know, that would be it because everybody's just like
Sarah: Thank god. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. That's it. We're not laughing. We're not laughing at death. We're not laughing at death. We really aren't. We really aren't. But yeah, no, there have been some pictures I found of living people that looked like they would rather be anywhere else.
Sheena: I know, that sounds Mm-hmm. Yeah. But I mean, you saw that photo and it said family murdered, you know, and husband, you know, family side. Family side all happened and you know, or you know, murder suicide within the child found underneath the table, you know, that kind of thing. That's you would go, ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah, that's
Sarah: Good. Yeah. ⁓ my gosh. I can, I can see that. Yeah. I can believe that would happen with those, with those people. ⁓ I got to, you got to show me that picture. You've got to show me that picture. I've to see it. I've got to see it. ⁓ God. Well, just to see your, mom and dad, you know, younger again from, know, when I knew them, like, Well, yeah, but I mean, it's, if I wasn't that long before.
Sheena: Mm-hmm. I will. I I'll have to fight it. Well, this is before you knew them.
Sarah: I mean, they were probably still recognizable. I'm sorry.
Sheena: Yeah, within about two, three years. Yeah. So go we'll get back now on track. Sorry, I just keep thinking about that photo.
Sarah: I know, I'm sorry. I dressed up. Hi squirrel. I'm sorry, go ahead.
Sheena: Alright, so one TL detail that often surprises people is the eyes. There is a persistent myth that Victorian photographers would paint eyes onto the photographs of the deceased to make them look more lifelike. ⁓ this is partially true. Some photographers did add painted eyes ⁓ to on them to look more lifelike. ⁓ in post-processing, particularly on their I hate this word. There argo types and early prints, but many postmortem photographs show subjects with closed eyes, which was also considered more appropriate, you know, peaceful like sleep. The open eyes technique was more common with very young children, where parents desperately wanted a sense that this was what the child the child looked like while it was alive. So then we'll go ahead and we'll skip forward for a bit. ⁓ so let's go into the actual mechanics of how these photographs were made because it's both more technically interesting and emotionally complicated than you might expect. So, you know, as we said before, you know, these early photographs required long exposure times. ⁓ they had to sit completely still from anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes. Living subjects used the metal neck braces and chair supports to help them hold positions. The deceased obviously did not have this problem. In some ways they were the ideal photographic subjects for the technology at the time.
Sarah: I'm sorry to say, yeah.
Sheena: Photographers developed yeah, developed specific techniques for the work. Bodies were sometimes propped up or supported with wired stands, a detail that occasionally becomes visible in photographs and which modern viewers sometimes find disturbing, but in which was simply practical at that time. The goal was always dignified, natural looking positioning. There was also significant artistry involved in the staging. You know, flowers were enormous. White flowers, especially particularly white roses and lilies, carried heavy symbolic weight in Victorian mourning culture. Garlands, wreaths, and single blooms placed in hands or on chests appeared constantly in ⁓ in those postmortem images. White symbolized purity and was especially associated with children and young unmarried women. Clothing was off
Sarah: Yeah.
Sheena: you know, was very carefully selected. This was the a formal portrait, which means your best clothing. So whether it be a christening gown for the infinites the infinites They are infinite, infinite infinite. ⁓ dress clothes for children, which you know, depending on when these photos were taken, you know, they all were in dresses, boys and girls.
Sarah: Exactly. The boys wore dresses until they were body trained. So, you know.
Sheena: Yep. F D R F DR wore dresses as a child, so yeah. Because there would be
Sarah: Really? Yeah. Turing was horrified when he found out that he was wearing a dress when I took him out for his first reenactment. He was horrified. He's like, what? I wore a dress. I'm like, yeah, you were a baby. You were a little less than a year old. And yeah, you wore a dress.
Sheena: Mm.
Sarah: you'd wear a dress until you were body trained. Yeah.
Sheena: what you would have worn. Potty trained or something called breaching, which is when when they started wearing breeches. Breeches. Breeches. Breeches. And so and of course formal wear for the adults. There's something about seeing a toddl toddler in a perfectly pressed white dress with a fow flower crown. Cr clearly gone, clearly beloved and care for that breaks something open in you. Like me.
Sarah: Yeah, I mean, and these pictures also told stories. You know, I mean, they told stories about, you know, who the people were. So I mean, that's why, you know, they wanted to put their best face forward. They wanted to make a good impression. They wanted to, you know, present their best side. So.
Sheena: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. And so then these photographs were then displayed in the home, framed on mantles, placed in memorial albums, carried in lockets. They were shared with extended family members who hadn't been able to attend the f the funeral. They were passed down through generations as a way of saying that this person existed, this person was ours. This person mattered in our family. Which is something that's really quite fascinating. You know, I mean I my mom has photos, but of I mean they were er like at earliest eighteen eighties that we have. I don't know who those people are. I know they're on my mom's side of the family, but who? No clue. None whatsoever. But you know, but that's them, they were there, they were in formal wear. You know. These weren't all just, you know, we're at the picnic and you know your third birthday or anything like that. Or as there's quite a few pictures of me running around naked as a baby because I would always just strip down and run. Can't hear you. Can't hear you.
Sarah: Sorry about that. I didn't want to interrupt you. I tried to not interrupt you before, so I was like, but my mom was a stripper. No, not really, but like as a child she was. But yeah, no.
Sheena: There we go. Yeah, and so one fascinating subcategory within post mortem photography is the Deguerotype case portrait. It's a small hinged case that contained a single photo meant to be held in the hand or carried in a pocket. So that couldn't have probably this big. Yeah, ⁓ these intimate objects were sometimes made as a matching pair, one photograph of the living person, one taking after death, displayed side by side. The contrast was intentional. It was a way of showing the fullness of life, not just the end. Which that's pretty nice. Yeah. Hmm. So as I already I did all the notes on this and I've already read through my my script and I'm like, ⁓ wait, hold on, let's think about that. ADHD, let me tell you.
Sarah: ADHD, yep. Squirrel.
Sheena: As photography technology improved through the late nineteenth century, faster exposures, cheaper processes, more accessible equipment, postmortem photography became something families could do themselves rather than hiring professionals. Kodak's introduction of the Brownie camera in the nineteen hundreds put photography in the hands of ordinary people, and with it came a shift toward more formal, intimate death photography, less formal portraits, more private memorial. So then we'll go on about death photography around the world now. Because, you know, the empire spread around, obviously, so ever a lot of technology got spread around through the empires. So and that's something that we also forget is that it wasn't just Victorian death photography. This was not just Victorian or Western practice.
Sarah: Mm-hmm
Sheena: ⁓ photographing the dead is something humans have done across cultures and across the world and traditions as they varied. So we have Mexico and Dia de los Muertes. Muertos. Muertes. Muertes. Thank you. I do. I do too. So in Mexican culture, photographs of the deceased are central to the Dio de los Muertos tradition.
Sarah: I love that.
Sheena: Ofrendas, the altars built in honor of the dead, were built around photographs. The photograph is how the spirit knows it is remembered, knows it is welcome. In this context, photography of the dead isn't about capturing the moment of death. It's about maintaining ongoing relationships. The dead are not gone, they are elsewhere, and the photograph is the door. Shout out to Coco.
Sarah: Yes, my kids love that movie. Kids love that movie.
Sheena: Yeah, I mean it's one of my favorite Disney movies. I mean, I gotta say Emperor's New Groove is my ultimate favorite. ⁓ you must. You must. I even watched it because it came in when came out while we were just in college. So I mean to say that I like that Yeah, I was already eighteen when that came out. So
Sarah: I've never seen that one. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm I will fully admit I mean, I'm I'm I still will watch cartoons, certain cartoons, certain cartoons, certain ⁓ at some years of age. So yeah, I mean, just good childhood memories, know, good childhood memories. You're never too old, never too old to enjoy. Disney movies or Saturday morning cartoons. ⁓ my God, I missed Saturday morning cartoons in the 80s. ⁓ Sorry.
Sheena: So we'll we'll jump back in and we're gonna go to the Philippines. So in the Philippines, there is a particular ritual that's done in rural and provincial communities, and it remains a common practice to photograph the deceased at wakes, which can last multiple days. They're not hidden or shameful photographs. They are shared openly and part of the community gathering of grief. Some families commission formal poor. Post mortem portraits even today. The dead are displayed openly. Visitors come to pay respects over several days, and photography is part of the communal witnessing. Now we're gonna go next to Madagascar. I know, that song just came into your head. We don't don't don't give in. Don't give in.
Sarah: I know, I know, I know. Go ahead, go ahead.
Sheena: So this might be the most dramatic example of all. The Morena and Betsilio peoples of Madagascar practice a ritual called I'm sorry Fama Dihana, which translates into the turning of the bones. Every five to seven years, families exume the remains of their ancestors, rewrap them in fresh burial burial shrouds, dance with the bones, share news and updates with the deceased. And then they re-inter them. It is a joyful communal celebration and yes, people take photographs. They dance holding the remains of their grandparents. They introduce the bones to new family members who have been born since the last ceremony. The photographs document a living, ongoing relationship with the dead. And then in Indonesia, ⁓ they, the Tahora or Toraja people of Saloisi, Indonesia, have a funeral practice that can last for weeks and even months, partly because of the elaborate ceremonies that they require ⁓ significant resources and time to prepare. So during this period, the deceased is kept in the family home, treated rather as they're ill than dead. They're fed symbolically, spoken to, and included in family life. When photography became available, it became part of this ritual. The Turaja also carve wooden effigies that are called Tao Tao, which stand in cliff faced tombs as permanent representatives of the dead. Photographs serve as a similar function, a way of keeping that person present. And then last we have Japan. ⁓ Japan has a complex and nuanced no word nuanced relationship with postmortem photography. Formal portraits of the deceased have been part of Japanese funeral practices. The large framed ph ⁓ portrait photograph displayed in the altar during a funeral is called a Iha photograph and is kept in the home afterward as part of an ongoing ancestor veneration. Japan also has its own specific aesthetic traditions around the phot the photographing of the dead that are distinct from Western postmortem portraiture. And then the through line of all of these traditions, Victorian England, rural Mexico, Highland Madagascar, Highland Sua Sea, and Japan, is that photography becomes a technology of grief and love. Wherever humans have gotten their hands on cameras, they have used them to hold on to the dead. And so now I want to go over a bit about modern death photography. You know, ⁓ for me, that's pretty much the only photos I have of
Sarah: Wait, there's modern death photography? Like people are still doing this? ⁓ okay.
Sheena: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And for me, I have more pictures of my own brothers at their my own especially Lauren's funeral than I do of him being alive and the ones that we have of him being alive are in the hospital.
Sarah: Well, I mean, I have one death photograph. ⁓ It's of my grandma, my mom's mom. And that was because she died right before I was going out to California on a trip. ⁓ And I wasn't able to make her funeral. My mom. said she would want you to go on this trip. You're going on this trip. So I went and I missed my grandma's funeral. So my mom, my dad, I guess my dad maybe took pictures of my grandmother in her casket before the people came in to visit and say their goodbyes. So I mean, I have one death photograph, but that's just because I wasn't able to be there. ⁓ But that's interesting that their ⁓ modern day death photographs continue.
Sheena: Yeah. Yeah. So it didn't as we're talking about it, it didn't die out. ⁓ but w in this twentieth century, you know, with the medicalization of death and the cultural squeamishness around mortality now, ⁓ it never ended. What happened instead is that it went underground for a while in Western cultures, particularly in the US, where the post World War Two era brought very specific Cultural norm around protecting people from the reality of death. Moving the dying to hospitals, closing the caskets, not talking about it. Death became medicalized and privatized, and photography of the dead became something that felt wrong, shameful, or transgressive. But grief doesn't go away just because we stopped talking about it. In the 1980s and 90s, the quiet movement. Began among parents who experienced pregnancy loss and infant death. These parents, who were often told to move on, to not dwell, that they would have other children, were finding that the absence of any tangible record of their baby's existence made grief harder, not easier. Nothing to hold, nothing to show, as if the baby had never existed at all. In 2001, photographer Sandy Puck, PUC. Founded Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, a nonprofit organization that provides free professional photography to parents of terminally ill newborns and infants, stillbirths and premature births. The photographs are not lurid or clinical, they are tender. They show tiny hands. They show parents holding their babies.
Sarah: I do know about that for infants who have passed who, yeah, that's like their only photograph is, ⁓ yeah, after they've, yeah, because they're maybe stillborn or, ⁓ so I do know of that. That's for talk.
Sheena: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and so the testimonials from parents who have used NILM DTS are extraordinary. These photographs become the only photographs that exist. They become the central object of grief, something to return to, something to show siblings years later. Which that's what I have. See, I told it it got personal. ⁓ so with Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep has now over 50,000 volunteer photographers in more than 50 countries. So the the demand for this has only grown. There is also a broader modern movement around what is sometimes called natural death care or death positivity, a cultural pushback against. The medicalization and hiding of death. Organizations like The Order of the Good Death, founded by a mortician and author Caitlin Daughtery, advocate for more open, honest, family-centered engagement with death and the dying process. Photo photographing the dying and the dead is part of this conversation. Hospice photography is also a growing field. Photographers who work with families during end of life care, documenting not the death itself, but the final weeks and days of the family gathered, those small moments, and they are understood to be profoundly therapeutic for families in grief. And then there's the internet, which has changed everything. Social media has created entirely new forms of death documentation. The obituary posts, the memorial page, the Instagram account maintained in someone's memory after they're gone. We photograph the dead at funerals and post photos. We share the last photographs taken of someone before they died. Some of this is controversial, some of it is complicated, but all of and all of it's continuous with the practice as old as photography itself.
Sarah: I'm not judging people who choose to do that. For someone who's lived a long life, I'm not judging the whole death photography thing. But I don't know if I really understand it. Because
Sheena: So Mm-hmm.
Sarah: You already know they're dead. You know they're dying. I mean, I don't, I wouldn't want to memorialize they're dying in my mind. Like my grandfather had liver cancer. had non, um, he had non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. When he died, he was so gaunt and skeletal and
Sheena: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Sarah: He did not look like himself. had a bloated belly. Obviously he had yellowish skin. was skeletal. And I don't want to remember him like that. I mean, he was in pain. remember he snapped at me. And my mom explained to me, Sarah, this is not your grandpa. He's in pain. It's not him anymore. I wouldn't want to remember that. I wouldn't want to memorialize that. I want to remember him as he is, as he was, healthy and fun and caring and loving. you know, I just, don't... I don't know. I know. Not sure if that's for me.
Sheena: Well, I mean I can yeah, it really just depends because there could have been a small moment that you may have missed, you know, and that you could wish that you had something other than your own memory.
Sarah: I mean. I mean, I have recordings of him, of his voice. And that's what I want. Like I wanted recordings of my grandparents because I honestly, I don't remember what they sound like anymore. My dad, when he interviewed my grandpa about his experiences in World War II, he recorded those interviews. So. I think he has them yet. But I can go back and I can listen to my grandpa talk. And that's nice to have. And of course, now in the days of cell phones, I mean, you can record your parents. And that's great because I have recordings of my father-in-law before he passed and I have recordings of my mother-in-law and I have my parents. so we can go back and we can play those. And that's what I want to remember. I not them lying, laying in bed, dying. That's morbid in my mind. that's the only way that people back then could really memorialize their loved ones because they didn't have the ability to just do it whenever they wanted to like we do today. I don't know. just I don't really get the whole death photography thing nowadays for someone who's lived their life.
Sheena: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: where you have photographs and videos and things like that.
Sheena: Yeah, well it just depends on each person, you know, and the thing is is that phot photography has always been an argument against forgetting. So when you photograph someone you love, you are fighting time. And so with that I want to encourage everybody to let people take their photo. Because
Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. Video so people can hear you so that you can play that video can be played back. Because after a person is gone for so long, you will forget what they sound like. You'll forget.
Sheena: Mm-hmm. And you're not gonna care that how fat you looked in that photo.
Sarah: Yeah, yeah, or if you didn't have makeup on or you didn't have, you you've had a bad hair day or whatever, you know, but. you know, looking back and being able to hear that person you loved. that's what I want. Like, honestly, that's what I wish I had most right now of my grandparents, because I lost my grandparents all the young age. I wish I could hear them again.
Sheena: Yeah, so that's that's my my call out when on based on this, you know, because we now photograph more than our parents did and their parents did. Their parents did.
Sarah: Yeah. Selfies. mean, Tyrion's always like, you know, TikToking himself, you know, for the camera, you know, he's always like, you know, like, I'm like, what are you doing? He's like, I got rude. I'm like, what? No, what? You know, and he's making TikToks and he's making, you know, music and he's, you know, using cap cuts.
Sheena: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: put his videos together and stuff. He's doing that all the time, all the time, you know, so much more than we did, you know, when we were younger and cell phones had, you know, came out.
Sheena: Well yeah. But then again we didn't have it in our Yeah, but it was a brick when we had cellphones. Then I was in college when I got my first cellphone.
Sarah: I had a Nokia. I think that was my very first Nokia. A flip phone. I was like, oh yeah, I'm cool.
Sheena: Yeah. The Nokia brick. I didn't even have a foot phone. I had the brick. I dropped a whole big fifteen ounce can of like something on it. That sucker still worked. The only thing is like it had like a little scratch, a little crack through it.
Sarah: ⁓ my god. I had a Blackberry for like a minute. I don't know what happened to that stupid thing. But I remember my very first phone was a Nokia and I was like, oh yeah, I'm cool. I got ringtones, pictures, you know, could make, you know, like certain people have certain ringtones.
Sheena: Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah: Yeah, you know, it's, it's, but I mean, you know, and now everyone has like either a droid or an apple or, know, so they have some kind of usually some kind of smartphone, unless you're like my mom, ⁓ you know, who refuses, she has a flip phone in her purse that she never uses because it's for emergencies only. So I, while I have her cell phone number in my phone, I obviously I'd never call it.
Sheena: Crazy. Mm-hmm. Ha ha ha.
Sarah: She never drives. She always drives with my dad, so I call him my dad. That's how I know because her phone won't be on anyway. But no, you know, it's... You know, is, but I mean, pictures in the, you know, it can also be a double edged sword, you know, taking all those pictures and stuff too, because, you know, you have social media now and those pictures can be uploaded on the social media. And, you know, that can be troublesome. That can be, you know, Like, you my sanitarian, he does not like when people take his pictures and just upload them to social media without his permission, without his consent. He wants to make sure he looks good. He wants to make sure that he's given permission. ⁓ So, I I feel for these kids nowadays because we didn't have to worry about that growing up. We got the cell phones and, you know, the things to be able to take pictures of our friends at a younger age, but we didn't have to worry about certain pictures being spread all over the internet you know so well yeah but I mean that this still wasn't like you know like what it is nowadays you know until you know but yes pictures memorialize pictures videos they memorialize and they're forever especially now with the cloud and everything like that
Sheena: Kind of. We did have MySpace. Yeah. No, definitely not what it was before. But Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Sarah: You have to work out negatives.
Sheena: Yeah, so I'm crazy and true and I think our wheel is broken because it keeps landing on the same thing, keeps giving me oddities and curiosities. I'm like, excuse me, I know I'm the ⁓ the weird girl, but I just did that.
Sarah: It gave you that again, the wheel? Seriously?
Sheena: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, finally. It gave me true crime.
Sarah: Okay, okay. That's funny. ⁓ my gosh.
Sheena: Yeah.
Sarah: That is funny.
Sheena: Yeah. So
Sarah: Well, mean, that is a topic that you oddities is a topic that you really, really love. So maybe the wheel senses that the wheels like, she really likes this stuff. I want to give it to her again. It's like, you know what? Variety is the spice of life, you know, so.
Sheena: Ha ha ha. Yes. And we don't unless you guys want us to sit over here and do another episode, you know. You gotta got you gotta let us know because, you know, there are some times where we could do multiple parts. Like if I have a true crime episode, you know, instead of having to jam it all into one episode, I could do two.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Sheena: You know, it's something you guys gotta let me know. Which is kinda funny. You can see my my Scandinavian coming through, how warm I am. Through this.
Sarah: That's, that happens to me too. Like whether I'm hot, whether I'm embarrassed, whether I've been drinking, it's all in my cheeks. You see it very easily in my cheeks. It's just poof with red poof and then they get warm and it's like, ⁓ I hate it. I hate it.
Sheena: Yep. Yep. This is my Scandinavian coming through. My Norwegian. So yeah, that's so that was our episode today. You know, something that I you know I do have pictures of family because a lot of them either died when I was a baby or, you know, that's you know, like my brothers, you know. I mean, I lost two brothers before the age of ten. So you know, am I glad that we have those pictures? Yes.
Sarah: I forget about Jason.
Sheena: Well, Jason was when I was three. So you know, and the o
Sarah: Yeah, yeah, I mean, because I didn't know you then. Lauren, do remember, I mean, obviously, I, you know, so, I mean, that one touched me because obviously I knew you, but I keep forgetting about Jason.
Sheena: Yeah, that's that's the only thing people are like, ⁓ you know, because like I still have Lorne Bear. My bear from Lorne. ⁓ but yeah, the only real photos I've seen are really blurry photos of Jason. And he was only alive for twenty days. So you know, I I mean obviously I don't remember it, but I know that it affected me as a kid. So
Sarah: Do you think that was it was because of your dad and where he was stationed and do think that?
Sheena: Had nothing to do with my dad being stationed.
Sarah: I mean, like.
Sheena: My dad My dad was he was a Marine. He ⁓ do you mean like the reason why all of us have such problems?
Sarah: So now you're talking about like. I mean, Steph, your staff and your brothers, mean, you're you're. How do I say this nicely? More normal of the four of you were, yes, you are. But I know you had talked about it before that, your dad was it wasn't Agent Orange. What was it? It was he was stationed somewhere that.
Sheena: Like health problems. I'm the most normal one out of everybody. He was the Camp Le June. They had the radioactive water. He was scheduled there from seventy-nine or not well. He was he was in the Marines, I think, from like I wanna say like seventy-eight to eighty four, somewhere along those lines. I don't between that time, during the time that they have radioactive water at Camp Le June.
Sarah: radioactive water. Yeah. I know you had talked about that I think in an earlier podcast that you wondered if that could have been some kind of
Sheena: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: reason why things happened. ⁓ I don't know what happened with Jason. And I barely remember what happened with Lauren. I just remembered you died very young.
Sheena: Yeah, two weeks before my ninth birthday. Yeah. ⁓ Jason had his he had spina bifida and also his brainstem didn't develop. So and my mom knew before and they did give her the option to terminate the pregnancy, but my mom chose not to. And then there's my sister who has spina bifida. and then a whole lot of other issues like Lennox fist out syndrome and ⁓ from an injury at a young age, a head injury and ⁓ mentally she's about thirteen. So and she's thirty how old is how old am I? I'm forty-two. So she's thirty-seven going on thirty-eight. And then Lauren, he had a rare brain tumor that and I I don't remember the name of it. ⁓ but he had it was one of the ones where it's
Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Sheena: very unlikely that they'll outlive toddler. Like it's usually diagnosed in infants and toddlers and they don't live beyond being a toddler. At least at that time. I don't know I don't know what kind it was what kind of tumor it was.
Sarah: He didn't live past being an infant, did he?
Sheena: No, he was ⁓ he died October twenty-fourth, nineteen ninety-two. And he was born December thirty first, nineteen ninety one. So he and he died two weeks before my ninth birthday, which is supposed to be your golden birthday.
Sarah: Your golden birth, and never to that.
Sheena: Yeah. I don't know what's supposed to be so golden about it because well
Sarah: Yeah, is it because it's your last year as single digits?
Sheena: No. Your golden birthday is the day is the age that you turn this the same day as your birthday. So like yours was when you were twenty eight.
Sarah: Okay, okay, because yours is the ninth of, okay. That doesn't make sense either though.
Sheena: I I I don't know. Anybody can fill us in on that. ⁓ I don't
Sarah: Yeah, I'll just look it up and see what golden birthdays are. Interesting.
Sheena: Yeah. And so has nothing to do with golden showers, I promise.
Sarah: Oh god, oh god, no golden showers, that's totally different subject, totally different subject, oh god. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Sheena: ⁓ so ⁓ before we end here, ⁓ you know, if this episode moved you or if you have a family story that's connected to death photography, we would generally love to hear it. ⁓ you can reach out to us through email, Instagram, also we're on threads. ⁓ so you know where to find us. ⁓ we have a Facebook page and you can email us, ⁓ which is so random and weird pod at gmail.com. And as always, if you are enjoying us as well, please leave a review, share an episode with somebody who would appreciate, and subscribe so you don't miss our next episodes. ⁓ and we will see you in the weird places.
Sarah: Read the word, warm-up. I love it. Love you guys. Thanks so much for joining us. Bye.
Sheena: Love you guys.
Sarah: Bye! I'm Sarah. ⁓
Sheena: And today I am covering Oddities and Curiosities with my spin last week. So this is definitely going to be ⁓ a little personal just because my life has been around so much death. And we'll say hello to Twinkles. Say hello next month. Next month she'll be 18. So
Sarah: you Woo! We're a little guest star. ⁓ my gosh. Bunky, our first cat lived till 19. And I think the vet said that in cat years, was like 143 or something. And I was like, that's phenomenal. That's pretty old for a cat. I don't think I'd want to live to be 143. I've outlived everybody. But like.
Sheena: Yeah. Yeah, my day more. No, no. My Dane was nineteen.
Sarah: Yeah. Well.
Sheena: And he's been gone for almost a year now.
Sarah: I spunky was definitely, I'm glad he was able to pass when he did. When he died, my dad was actually helping him to go to the bathroom. Like he couldn't go. And the vet, I mean, the vet said, you know, he's not in pain. He's not in pain. He's not hurting. ⁓ And so he actually showed my dad how to like,
Sheena: Mm.
Sarah: squeeze his bowels, like his abdomen, his, you know, to help express, yeah, and to get, so that I can't imagine, my dad is not a big cat fan, but that he did that for Spunky, that he, that he, you know, I mean, I thought that was a really, that was a really awesome thing for my dad to do. ⁓ but I am glad that, you know, he had passed when he did, cause
Sheena: Mm-hmm. Yeah, to express them. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah: That's, I would not want anyone helping me to go to the bathroom. I already told my kids that if I'm like on a, you know, if I'm like in a diaper or bedpan, just end it all. I'm not a big fan of public bathrooming, going in front of people, having people see me. Anyway.
Sheena: Ha ha ha. Yeah. Yeah. But
Sarah: I don't know how we got on that topic. Never mind.
Sheena: Well, ⁓ because today we are handling the the ⁓ phot photography of the dead.
Sarah: I was hoping you were going to do that.
Sheena: Because, you know, ⁓ it is now in this day and age, it is very much like the old ones are are oddities and now it's a curiosity. So ⁓ you know, I understand that this is like ri can be really touchy for people. So I just wanna to warn you now, you know, we are gonna be talking about deaf and Part of the reason why Twinkles is probably coming up here because she's my little nursemaid and anytime I there's something sensitive, she has to be right by me. So I just want to give everybody that option that you guys don't have to listen. You don't have to, you know, you guys can skip this one or save it for another time. Yeah. But for me. It's a sensitive topic, but at the same time, pretty much every year that my parents were married, somebody died. And that included two of my own siblings. So death is something that I am very comfortable around. It's not something that sometimes it takes the breath out of me, but very rarely does it. It's usually only when it's like the really sudden deaths, like my own father's death. ⁓ because that was, you know, suicide. So anyway, so we'll go ahead and we'll get started on this. So
Sarah: Unexpected.
Sheena: And the thing is too is that this subject is quite deeply and profoundly human as well is because it's something that we will all experience at one time or another. So I want you to imagine something. ⁓ you're standing in an antique shop, one of those good ones, the kind that smells like old paper and cedar and mystery and not like must and like grandpa's moldy old cologne. Yeah.
Sarah: Yeah, the old smell.
Sheena: Nasty smell, you know. And you pick up an old photograph. It's sepia toned, mounted on thick cardstock, a family portrait, a mother, father, two children, and then you look closer. One of the children isn't sitting up, they're propped up. Their eyes are closed, and there are flowers in their hand. That child is dead. And whoever these people were, whoever the family was. They dressed their child in their finest clothes, arranged them with care, and paid a photographer to come to their home so they could remember, so they could hold on to a face that was already leaving them. Today, like I said, we're talking about death photography, Victorian post postmortem portraits, the cultural t traditions around photographing the dead worldwide, and how the practice never really actually went away. It just changed. Because grief doesn't go away. The need to hold on doesn't go away. So let's get into it. So first let's define what we're talking about because death photography is actually kind of a big umbrella term. You know, it can cover everything from, you know, any photography that's taken of a deceased person, be that, you know, within the tradition, a postmortem, and as a keepsake. There's morning photography, which includes photos of grieving families, funeral arrangements and burial practices. And then there's what we might call documentation photography, which is your images taken for medical, legal, or journalistic purposes. And so we're gonna focus mostly on the first two, the intimate personal grief driven practice of photograph photographing the people you've lost, and to understand why this happens and why it makes it complete sense. But we need to talk about context. Photography was invented in the late 1830s. The Dragotype process was introduced publicly in eighteen thirty-nine, and within years, portrait studios were popping up everywhere. For the first time in human history, ordinary people, not just the elite who could commission oil paintings, can have a likeness of someone they love. Now here's where it gets important. In the mid-1800s, Child mortality was devastating. We're talking roughly forty to fifty percent of children in industrialized ⁓ countries died before the age of five. Diseases we now vaccinate against scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough, smallpox, and measles, were constant, merciless presences in life, everyday life. And so not to mention also, children worked as well. And they were the ones that got into the the machines because they had little fingers.
Sarah: Well, and that, yeah, yeah. They had, could crawl up on machines. They had the agility to be able to do that. So they were used to do that. They were used to do the dangerous things and they lost fingers and hands and limbs extremities. mean, you know, girls had to have their hair short because their hair would get stuck in the machinery and it would pull their hair out and off their scalp and pull their scalp off. It was Absolutely. This is why we have child labor laws. This is absolutely horrific. What these industrialists were willing to do to children. And that's why people had a lot of children because of infant mortality rates. mean, you know, they're probably it was very rare to be in a family where you didn't lose a child, unfortunately, even in a mother in childbirth. So, yeah.
Sheena: Right. Yes, and so for many families, the only only photograph that is ever taken of a child was after their child died. Not because the parents were morbid, but because photography was expensive, sessions required sitting still for extended periods, and you often didn't think to document someone until they were gone. Because if you ever see those old, old photos where there's just one person And whether it's child or grown up sitting and there everybody else around them seems very fuzzy. That's why is because the way that the photos were able to be taken, you had to sit there for hours maybe. And so of course it makes sense that the person who passed is the only one that you're going to be able to see clearly in this photograph. Because if you look at the original ⁓ the very first photo. You can see a blurry line of where people would be walking, but the city itself, like the building, stayed the same.
Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, you had to sit still for several minutes and that was very hard for children. they, ⁓ being a Savoring actor, ⁓ was a facility in Gettysburg at the time ⁓ and they did old fashioned pictures like on the glass plates. Really neat, which is what... You know, they didn't have negatives back then. The pictures actually were taken on glass plates. So they were also very fragile and glass was expensive too. So once again, why pictures were expensive. But anyway, ⁓ so if you were standing, they actually brought in things like that went up behind you and like a grip that gripped you at your neck so that your neck didn't move. So you had to stay in this position. ⁓
Sheena: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: which was interesting, I thought. ⁓ But yeah, it's got
Sheena: Yeah. Also you wonder why people don't smile in those photos. Imagine
Sarah: Well, and also, wasn't, I mean, some people did smile, wasn't, pictures really weren't a vanity. It was more like, ⁓ you know, it was more like a, it wasn't like a, ⁓ cheese smile. You know, it was more like a, this is a solemn, you know, but I mean, not everyone, mean, some people did smile, but it was also a very serious and solemn time. And that's why people were like, you know,
Sheena: Is it onion?
Sarah: more serious face.
Sheena: so we'll first start off with the Victorian mourning culture. So to understand that, Victorian death photography, you have to understand that Victorians were not shy about death the way that we are today. They were obsessed with it, but obsessed in a way that was organized, ritualized, and communal. Queen Victoria herself set the cultural tone. When Prince Albert died in eighteen sixty one, she went into mourning so profound and so public that it lasted until her own death in nineteen ⁓ one, forty years later. She slept with a cast of his hand beside her bed. She had his cloth his clothes laid out every morning as if he still might dress the next day. She carried his photograph everywhere. Under Victoria's influence, Morning became a full cultural system with rules, rituals, and a robust economy around it. There was morning jewelry and there were morning dress codes. Widows were expected to wear full black widow weeds for up to two years with specific fabrics, specific jewelry, and a gradual progression back towards color governed by elaborate social protocol. In fact, I remember where it's like in the last couple of months of your mourning ⁓ that you were finally able to wear like lilac purple.
Sarah: Yeah, my friend, like I said, I was a Civil War reenactor and my friend Mariana, she had beautiful outfits and she had third year morning, a third year morning dress, was gray, but it also had a little bit of like golden color in there too. You know, like it was, it was really neat. It was just so beautiful. yeah, Widowsweeds. Women had to wear black the first year or two. And then the third year morning, they could go gray. And a little bit of color. But mostly, it was still gray. But yeah, it was fascinating. Men had arm bands. And I don't think they had to mourn as long. Women did.
Sheena: Yep, and men had armbands.
Sarah: I don't remember men's morning rituals. I think they was like maybe a year. think. I don't know. But yeah, women, it three years.
Sheena: Yeah, and then there was also morning cards, which is essentially a Victorian death announcement, often beautifully printed with black borders and the details of the deceased. Households hung black crepe on their doors to signal a death, mirrors were covered, clocks were stopped at the moment of death, which is also a bit of a ritual for that art as well. ⁓ so which is kinda interesting, you know, and bringing in an old tradition of covering the mirrors, stopping clocks. So in this core culture of formalized public material grief, photography arrived. Of course they photographed the dead. Of course they did. Postmortem photography became so normalized that there were professional photographers who ⁓ specialized in it. They advertised, they had rates, they would come to your home. The phrase commonly used in the industry at the time was taken from life, a phrase that tells you everything about how they framed the work. Not taken after death. It was taken from life, as if the photograph was catching something before it fully slipped away. The aesthetics of these images were intentional and carefully considered. Photographers and families worked together to present the deceased as peacefully asleep rather than dead. Children were often posed in their beds, surrounded by favorite toys or flowers. Adults might be seated in a chair positioned. At a table, even arranged outdoors and garden settings. Some of the most haunting images are the ones where the living are posed alongside the dead, parents holding the infants, siblings arranged around a brother or sister. When you looked at these photos, you could understand immediately that this was a family that was trying to hold themselves together around an absence that is already consuming them.
Sarah: And sometimes, and I'm sorry, you may say this and I apologize if I ruined something, but what gets me is sometimes when the family members are being hidden in the picture, you know, they're being, do you talk about that? I'm sorry. I, am I, what, what really gets me is like the parents will be holding the child, but they're, covered with a blanket or
Sheena: Mm-hmm. Yes, okay. No, no. You're fine. Mm.
Sarah: a tablecloth or something to make it look like the child is sitting by themselves. ⁓ Which obviously is not true. They're being held up by their parents because they're deceased. The child is deceased. ⁓ And that's, that's to me, that's eerie. I mean, I think I'd rather have had a mother there holding her child than hiding and pretending the child is alive. whatever. mean, I guess.
Sheena: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: I don't know what the reasoning was behind like certain, you know, like why we're doing this instead of this. If it was, you know, parent preference, I don't know. But ⁓ yeah, those are weird pictures. I feel that it's creepy in my mind.
Sheena: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I don't I'd I'd I would rather just be like with the flowers or in the garden, you know, cropped up in a chair.
Sarah: Yeah, I mean, don't understand. I mean, guess maybe if they wanted a picture of what, this is what my child looked like when they were alive because they want to remember the past. OK, maybe I get that. I don't know. But I mean, it's hiding the parent underneath a sheet or a blanket or a tablecloth to pretend. mean, and obviously the parents there. mean.
Sheena: Hm.
Sarah: Yes, I mean, you notice the bulge of the parent of the shape. ⁓ I mean, and they did well with hiding. I mean, they did well hiding it, but you can still tell. But yeah, it's. On. But there's also another thing that freaked me out. Was I saw a death picture of a family. Mother. Father. children I think two or three children I think ⁓ it was a murder-suicide and I think the wife I forget if it was husband or the wife that killed the other like the spouse and the children and then themselves I think it was because I remember I think was the wife that actually killed everyone else and then killed herself I remember that they were talking about having to like hide her head because of she was shot in the head. ⁓ It was very, but I mean, they were all together in one casket. And I'm thinking, would the other spouse really have wanted to be buried with someone who had killed them and their children?
Sheena: Mm-hmm. Mm, yeah.
Sarah: I mean, if my husband decided to, you know, pop me off and my children, and then himself, I'm sorry, I really don't want to be buried with him. You know, taking my life and my children's life is penis and cowardly. You know, I'm...
Sheena: Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't mean to laugh but there is a family photo that is of me, my mom, and my dad. And I was very young. ⁓ and my mom was pregnant. ⁓ I I don't I know it it was either Stephanie or my brother Jason, ⁓ that she was pregnant with. So, you know, because it was only me who was in the photo and The way that this photo looks, I'll have to find it and send it to you. But I mean, everybody just looks like you know, it's like this well, not just that, but just like if that was the family photo that they put in the the ⁓ in the newspaper of like the you know, family homicide, you know, that would be it because everybody's just like
Sarah: Thank god. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. That's it. We're not laughing. We're not laughing at death. We're not laughing at death. We really aren't. We really aren't. But yeah, no, there have been some pictures I found of living people that looked like they would rather be anywhere else.
Sheena: I know, that sounds Mm-hmm. Yeah. But I mean, you saw that photo and it said family murdered, you know, and husband, you know, family side. Family side all happened and you know, or you know, murder suicide within the child found underneath the table, you know, that kind of thing. That's you would go, ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah, that's
Sarah: Good. Yeah. ⁓ my gosh. I can, I can see that. Yeah. I can believe that would happen with those, with those people. ⁓ I got to, you got to show me that picture. You've got to show me that picture. I've to see it. I've got to see it. ⁓ God. Well, just to see your, mom and dad, you know, younger again from, know, when I knew them, like, Well, yeah, but I mean, it's, if I wasn't that long before.
Sheena: Mm-hmm. I will. I I'll have to fight it. Well, this is before you knew them.
Sarah: I mean, they were probably still recognizable. I'm sorry.
Sheena: Yeah, within about two, three years. Yeah. So go we'll get back now on track. Sorry, I just keep thinking about that photo.
Sarah: I know, I'm sorry. I dressed up. Hi squirrel. I'm sorry, go ahead.
Sheena: Alright, so one TL detail that often surprises people is the eyes. There is a persistent myth that Victorian photographers would paint eyes onto the photographs of the deceased to make them look more lifelike. ⁓ this is partially true. Some photographers did add painted eyes ⁓ to on them to look more lifelike. ⁓ in post-processing, particularly on their I hate this word. There argo types and early prints, but many postmortem photographs show subjects with closed eyes, which was also considered more appropriate, you know, peaceful like sleep. The open eyes technique was more common with very young children, where parents desperately wanted a sense that this was what the child the child looked like while it was alive. So then we'll go ahead and we'll skip forward for a bit. ⁓ so let's go into the actual mechanics of how these photographs were made because it's both more technically interesting and emotionally complicated than you might expect. So, you know, as we said before, you know, these early photographs required long exposure times. ⁓ they had to sit completely still from anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes. Living subjects used the metal neck braces and chair supports to help them hold positions. The deceased obviously did not have this problem. In some ways they were the ideal photographic subjects for the technology at the time.
Sarah: I'm sorry to say, yeah.
Sheena: Photographers developed yeah, developed specific techniques for the work. Bodies were sometimes propped up or supported with wired stands, a detail that occasionally becomes visible in photographs and which modern viewers sometimes find disturbing, but in which was simply practical at that time. The goal was always dignified, natural looking positioning. There was also significant artistry involved in the staging. You know, flowers were enormous. White flowers, especially particularly white roses and lilies, carried heavy symbolic weight in Victorian mourning culture. Garlands, wreaths, and single blooms placed in hands or on chests appeared constantly in ⁓ in those postmortem images. White symbolized purity and was especially associated with children and young unmarried women. Clothing was off
Sarah: Yeah.
Sheena: you know, was very carefully selected. This was the a formal portrait, which means your best clothing. So whether it be a christening gown for the infinites the infinites They are infinite, infinite infinite. ⁓ dress clothes for children, which you know, depending on when these photos were taken, you know, they all were in dresses, boys and girls.
Sarah: Exactly. The boys wore dresses until they were body trained. So, you know.
Sheena: Yep. F D R F DR wore dresses as a child, so yeah. Because there would be
Sarah: Really? Yeah. Turing was horrified when he found out that he was wearing a dress when I took him out for his first reenactment. He was horrified. He's like, what? I wore a dress. I'm like, yeah, you were a baby. You were a little less than a year old. And yeah, you wore a dress.
Sheena: Mm.
Sarah: you'd wear a dress until you were body trained. Yeah.
Sheena: what you would have worn. Potty trained or something called breaching, which is when when they started wearing breeches. Breeches. Breeches. Breeches. And so and of course formal wear for the adults. There's something about seeing a toddl toddler in a perfectly pressed white dress with a fow flower crown. Cr clearly gone, clearly beloved and care for that breaks something open in you. Like me.
Sarah: Yeah, I mean, and these pictures also told stories. You know, I mean, they told stories about, you know, who the people were. So I mean, that's why, you know, they wanted to put their best face forward. They wanted to make a good impression. They wanted to, you know, present their best side. So.
Sheena: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. And so then these photographs were then displayed in the home, framed on mantles, placed in memorial albums, carried in lockets. They were shared with extended family members who hadn't been able to attend the f the funeral. They were passed down through generations as a way of saying that this person existed, this person was ours. This person mattered in our family. Which is something that's really quite fascinating. You know, I mean I my mom has photos, but of I mean they were er like at earliest eighteen eighties that we have. I don't know who those people are. I know they're on my mom's side of the family, but who? No clue. None whatsoever. But you know, but that's them, they were there, they were in formal wear. You know. These weren't all just, you know, we're at the picnic and you know your third birthday or anything like that. Or as there's quite a few pictures of me running around naked as a baby because I would always just strip down and run. Can't hear you. Can't hear you.
Sarah: Sorry about that. I didn't want to interrupt you. I tried to not interrupt you before, so I was like, but my mom was a stripper. No, not really, but like as a child she was. But yeah, no.
Sheena: There we go. Yeah, and so one fascinating subcategory within post mortem photography is the Deguerotype case portrait. It's a small hinged case that contained a single photo meant to be held in the hand or carried in a pocket. So that couldn't have probably this big. Yeah, ⁓ these intimate objects were sometimes made as a matching pair, one photograph of the living person, one taking after death, displayed side by side. The contrast was intentional. It was a way of showing the fullness of life, not just the end. Which that's pretty nice. Yeah. Hmm. So as I already I did all the notes on this and I've already read through my my script and I'm like, ⁓ wait, hold on, let's think about that. ADHD, let me tell you.
Sarah: ADHD, yep. Squirrel.
Sheena: As photography technology improved through the late nineteenth century, faster exposures, cheaper processes, more accessible equipment, postmortem photography became something families could do themselves rather than hiring professionals. Kodak's introduction of the Brownie camera in the nineteen hundreds put photography in the hands of ordinary people, and with it came a shift toward more formal, intimate death photography, less formal portraits, more private memorial. So then we'll go on about death photography around the world now. Because, you know, the empire spread around, obviously, so ever a lot of technology got spread around through the empires. So and that's something that we also forget is that it wasn't just Victorian death photography. This was not just Victorian or Western practice.
Sarah: Mm-hmm
Sheena: ⁓ photographing the dead is something humans have done across cultures and across the world and traditions as they varied. So we have Mexico and Dia de los Muertes. Muertos. Muertes. Muertes. Thank you. I do. I do too. So in Mexican culture, photographs of the deceased are central to the Dio de los Muertos tradition.
Sarah: I love that.
Sheena: Ofrendas, the altars built in honor of the dead, were built around photographs. The photograph is how the spirit knows it is remembered, knows it is welcome. In this context, photography of the dead isn't about capturing the moment of death. It's about maintaining ongoing relationships. The dead are not gone, they are elsewhere, and the photograph is the door. Shout out to Coco.
Sarah: Yes, my kids love that movie. Kids love that movie.
Sheena: Yeah, I mean it's one of my favorite Disney movies. I mean, I gotta say Emperor's New Groove is my ultimate favorite. ⁓ you must. You must. I even watched it because it came in when came out while we were just in college. So I mean to say that I like that Yeah, I was already eighteen when that came out. So
Sarah: I've never seen that one. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm I will fully admit I mean, I'm I'm I still will watch cartoons, certain cartoons, certain cartoons, certain ⁓ at some years of age. So yeah, I mean, just good childhood memories, know, good childhood memories. You're never too old, never too old to enjoy. Disney movies or Saturday morning cartoons. ⁓ my God, I missed Saturday morning cartoons in the 80s. ⁓ Sorry.
Sheena: So we'll we'll jump back in and we're gonna go to the Philippines. So in the Philippines, there is a particular ritual that's done in rural and provincial communities, and it remains a common practice to photograph the deceased at wakes, which can last multiple days. They're not hidden or shameful photographs. They are shared openly and part of the community gathering of grief. Some families commission formal poor. Post mortem portraits even today. The dead are displayed openly. Visitors come to pay respects over several days, and photography is part of the communal witnessing. Now we're gonna go next to Madagascar. I know, that song just came into your head. We don't don't don't give in. Don't give in.
Sarah: I know, I know, I know. Go ahead, go ahead.
Sheena: So this might be the most dramatic example of all. The Morena and Betsilio peoples of Madagascar practice a ritual called I'm sorry Fama Dihana, which translates into the turning of the bones. Every five to seven years, families exume the remains of their ancestors, rewrap them in fresh burial burial shrouds, dance with the bones, share news and updates with the deceased. And then they re-inter them. It is a joyful communal celebration and yes, people take photographs. They dance holding the remains of their grandparents. They introduce the bones to new family members who have been born since the last ceremony. The photographs document a living, ongoing relationship with the dead. And then in Indonesia, ⁓ they, the Tahora or Toraja people of Saloisi, Indonesia, have a funeral practice that can last for weeks and even months, partly because of the elaborate ceremonies that they require ⁓ significant resources and time to prepare. So during this period, the deceased is kept in the family home, treated rather as they're ill than dead. They're fed symbolically, spoken to, and included in family life. When photography became available, it became part of this ritual. The Turaja also carve wooden effigies that are called Tao Tao, which stand in cliff faced tombs as permanent representatives of the dead. Photographs serve as a similar function, a way of keeping that person present. And then last we have Japan. ⁓ Japan has a complex and nuanced no word nuanced relationship with postmortem photography. Formal portraits of the deceased have been part of Japanese funeral practices. The large framed ph ⁓ portrait photograph displayed in the altar during a funeral is called a Iha photograph and is kept in the home afterward as part of an ongoing ancestor veneration. Japan also has its own specific aesthetic traditions around the phot the photographing of the dead that are distinct from Western postmortem portraiture. And then the through line of all of these traditions, Victorian England, rural Mexico, Highland Madagascar, Highland Sua Sea, and Japan, is that photography becomes a technology of grief and love. Wherever humans have gotten their hands on cameras, they have used them to hold on to the dead. And so now I want to go over a bit about modern death photography. You know, ⁓ for me, that's pretty much the only photos I have of
Sarah: Wait, there's modern death photography? Like people are still doing this? ⁓ okay.
Sheena: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And for me, I have more pictures of my own brothers at their my own especially Lauren's funeral than I do of him being alive and the ones that we have of him being alive are in the hospital.
Sarah: Well, I mean, I have one death photograph. ⁓ It's of my grandma, my mom's mom. And that was because she died right before I was going out to California on a trip. ⁓ And I wasn't able to make her funeral. My mom. said she would want you to go on this trip. You're going on this trip. So I went and I missed my grandma's funeral. So my mom, my dad, I guess my dad maybe took pictures of my grandmother in her casket before the people came in to visit and say their goodbyes. So I mean, I have one death photograph, but that's just because I wasn't able to be there. ⁓ But that's interesting that their ⁓ modern day death photographs continue.
Sheena: Yeah. Yeah. So it didn't as we're talking about it, it didn't die out. ⁓ but w in this twentieth century, you know, with the medicalization of death and the cultural squeamishness around mortality now, ⁓ it never ended. What happened instead is that it went underground for a while in Western cultures, particularly in the US, where the post World War Two era brought very specific Cultural norm around protecting people from the reality of death. Moving the dying to hospitals, closing the caskets, not talking about it. Death became medicalized and privatized, and photography of the dead became something that felt wrong, shameful, or transgressive. But grief doesn't go away just because we stopped talking about it. In the 1980s and 90s, the quiet movement. Began among parents who experienced pregnancy loss and infant death. These parents, who were often told to move on, to not dwell, that they would have other children, were finding that the absence of any tangible record of their baby's existence made grief harder, not easier. Nothing to hold, nothing to show, as if the baby had never existed at all. In 2001, photographer Sandy Puck, PUC. Founded Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, a nonprofit organization that provides free professional photography to parents of terminally ill newborns and infants, stillbirths and premature births. The photographs are not lurid or clinical, they are tender. They show tiny hands. They show parents holding their babies.
Sarah: I do know about that for infants who have passed who, yeah, that's like their only photograph is, ⁓ yeah, after they've, yeah, because they're maybe stillborn or, ⁓ so I do know of that. That's for talk.
Sheena: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and so the testimonials from parents who have used NILM DTS are extraordinary. These photographs become the only photographs that exist. They become the central object of grief, something to return to, something to show siblings years later. Which that's what I have. See, I told it it got personal. ⁓ so with Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep has now over 50,000 volunteer photographers in more than 50 countries. So the the demand for this has only grown. There is also a broader modern movement around what is sometimes called natural death care or death positivity, a cultural pushback against. The medicalization and hiding of death. Organizations like The Order of the Good Death, founded by a mortician and author Caitlin Daughtery, advocate for more open, honest, family-centered engagement with death and the dying process. Photo photographing the dying and the dead is part of this conversation. Hospice photography is also a growing field. Photographers who work with families during end of life care, documenting not the death itself, but the final weeks and days of the family gathered, those small moments, and they are understood to be profoundly therapeutic for families in grief. And then there's the internet, which has changed everything. Social media has created entirely new forms of death documentation. The obituary posts, the memorial page, the Instagram account maintained in someone's memory after they're gone. We photograph the dead at funerals and post photos. We share the last photographs taken of someone before they died. Some of this is controversial, some of it is complicated, but all of and all of it's continuous with the practice as old as photography itself.
Sarah: I'm not judging people who choose to do that. For someone who's lived a long life, I'm not judging the whole death photography thing. But I don't know if I really understand it. Because
Sheena: So Mm-hmm.
Sarah: You already know they're dead. You know they're dying. I mean, I don't, I wouldn't want to memorialize they're dying in my mind. Like my grandfather had liver cancer. had non, um, he had non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. When he died, he was so gaunt and skeletal and
Sheena: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Sarah: He did not look like himself. had a bloated belly. Obviously he had yellowish skin. was skeletal. And I don't want to remember him like that. I mean, he was in pain. remember he snapped at me. And my mom explained to me, Sarah, this is not your grandpa. He's in pain. It's not him anymore. I wouldn't want to remember that. I wouldn't want to memorialize that. I want to remember him as he is, as he was, healthy and fun and caring and loving. you know, I just, don't... I don't know. I know. Not sure if that's for me.
Sheena: Well, I mean I can yeah, it really just depends because there could have been a small moment that you may have missed, you know, and that you could wish that you had something other than your own memory.
Sarah: I mean. I mean, I have recordings of him, of his voice. And that's what I want. Like I wanted recordings of my grandparents because I honestly, I don't remember what they sound like anymore. My dad, when he interviewed my grandpa about his experiences in World War II, he recorded those interviews. So. I think he has them yet. But I can go back and I can listen to my grandpa talk. And that's nice to have. And of course, now in the days of cell phones, I mean, you can record your parents. And that's great because I have recordings of my father-in-law before he passed and I have recordings of my mother-in-law and I have my parents. so we can go back and we can play those. And that's what I want to remember. I not them lying, laying in bed, dying. That's morbid in my mind. that's the only way that people back then could really memorialize their loved ones because they didn't have the ability to just do it whenever they wanted to like we do today. I don't know. just I don't really get the whole death photography thing nowadays for someone who's lived their life.
Sheena: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: where you have photographs and videos and things like that.
Sheena: Yeah, well it just depends on each person, you know, and the thing is is that phot photography has always been an argument against forgetting. So when you photograph someone you love, you are fighting time. And so with that I want to encourage everybody to let people take their photo. Because
Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. Video so people can hear you so that you can play that video can be played back. Because after a person is gone for so long, you will forget what they sound like. You'll forget.
Sheena: Mm-hmm. And you're not gonna care that how fat you looked in that photo.
Sarah: Yeah, yeah, or if you didn't have makeup on or you didn't have, you you've had a bad hair day or whatever, you know, but. you know, looking back and being able to hear that person you loved. that's what I want. Like, honestly, that's what I wish I had most right now of my grandparents, because I lost my grandparents all the young age. I wish I could hear them again.
Sheena: Yeah, so that's that's my my call out when on based on this, you know, because we now photograph more than our parents did and their parents did. Their parents did.
Sarah: Yeah. Selfies. mean, Tyrion's always like, you know, TikToking himself, you know, for the camera, you know, he's always like, you know, like, I'm like, what are you doing? He's like, I got rude. I'm like, what? No, what? You know, and he's making TikToks and he's making, you know, music and he's, you know, using cap cuts.
Sheena: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: put his videos together and stuff. He's doing that all the time, all the time, you know, so much more than we did, you know, when we were younger and cell phones had, you know, came out.
Sheena: Well yeah. But then again we didn't have it in our Yeah, but it was a brick when we had cellphones. Then I was in college when I got my first cellphone.
Sarah: I had a Nokia. I think that was my very first Nokia. A flip phone. I was like, oh yeah, I'm cool.
Sheena: Yeah. The Nokia brick. I didn't even have a foot phone. I had the brick. I dropped a whole big fifteen ounce can of like something on it. That sucker still worked. The only thing is like it had like a little scratch, a little crack through it.
Sarah: ⁓ my god. I had a Blackberry for like a minute. I don't know what happened to that stupid thing. But I remember my very first phone was a Nokia and I was like, oh yeah, I'm cool. I got ringtones, pictures, you know, could make, you know, like certain people have certain ringtones.
Sheena: Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah: Yeah, you know, it's, it's, but I mean, you know, and now everyone has like either a droid or an apple or, know, so they have some kind of usually some kind of smartphone, unless you're like my mom, ⁓ you know, who refuses, she has a flip phone in her purse that she never uses because it's for emergencies only. So I, while I have her cell phone number in my phone, I obviously I'd never call it.
Sheena: Crazy. Mm-hmm. Ha ha ha.
Sarah: She never drives. She always drives with my dad, so I call him my dad. That's how I know because her phone won't be on anyway. But no, you know, it's... You know, is, but I mean, pictures in the, you know, it can also be a double edged sword, you know, taking all those pictures and stuff too, because, you know, you have social media now and those pictures can be uploaded on the social media. And, you know, that can be troublesome. That can be, you know, Like, you my sanitarian, he does not like when people take his pictures and just upload them to social media without his permission, without his consent. He wants to make sure he looks good. He wants to make sure that he's given permission. ⁓ So, I I feel for these kids nowadays because we didn't have to worry about that growing up. We got the cell phones and, you know, the things to be able to take pictures of our friends at a younger age, but we didn't have to worry about certain pictures being spread all over the internet you know so well yeah but I mean that this still wasn't like you know like what it is nowadays you know until you know but yes pictures memorialize pictures videos they memorialize and they're forever especially now with the cloud and everything like that
Sheena: Kind of. We did have MySpace. Yeah. No, definitely not what it was before. But Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Sarah: You have to work out negatives.
Sheena: Yeah, so I'm crazy and true and I think our wheel is broken because it keeps landing on the same thing, keeps giving me oddities and curiosities. I'm like, excuse me, I know I'm the ⁓ the weird girl, but I just did that.
Sarah: It gave you that again, the wheel? Seriously?
Sheena: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, finally. It gave me true crime.
Sarah: Okay, okay. That's funny. ⁓ my gosh.
Sheena: Yeah.
Sarah: That is funny.
Sheena: Yeah. So
Sarah: Well, mean, that is a topic that you oddities is a topic that you really, really love. So maybe the wheel senses that the wheels like, she really likes this stuff. I want to give it to her again. It's like, you know what? Variety is the spice of life, you know, so.
Sheena: Ha ha ha. Yes. And we don't unless you guys want us to sit over here and do another episode, you know. You gotta got you gotta let us know because, you know, there are some times where we could do multiple parts. Like if I have a true crime episode, you know, instead of having to jam it all into one episode, I could do two.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Sheena: You know, it's something you guys gotta let me know. Which is kinda funny. You can see my my Scandinavian coming through, how warm I am. Through this.
Sarah: That's, that happens to me too. Like whether I'm hot, whether I'm embarrassed, whether I've been drinking, it's all in my cheeks. You see it very easily in my cheeks. It's just poof with red poof and then they get warm and it's like, ⁓ I hate it. I hate it.
Sheena: Yep. Yep. This is my Scandinavian coming through. My Norwegian. So yeah, that's so that was our episode today. You know, something that I you know I do have pictures of family because a lot of them either died when I was a baby or, you know, that's you know, like my brothers, you know. I mean, I lost two brothers before the age of ten. So you know, am I glad that we have those pictures? Yes.
Sarah: I forget about Jason.
Sheena: Well, Jason was when I was three. So you know, and the o
Sarah: Yeah, yeah, I mean, because I didn't know you then. Lauren, do remember, I mean, obviously, I, you know, so, I mean, that one touched me because obviously I knew you, but I keep forgetting about Jason.
Sheena: Yeah, that's that's the only thing people are like, ⁓ you know, because like I still have Lorne Bear. My bear from Lorne. ⁓ but yeah, the only real photos I've seen are really blurry photos of Jason. And he was only alive for twenty days. So you know, I I mean obviously I don't remember it, but I know that it affected me as a kid. So
Sarah: Do you think that was it was because of your dad and where he was stationed and do think that?
Sheena: Had nothing to do with my dad being stationed.
Sarah: I mean, like.
Sheena: My dad My dad was he was a Marine. He ⁓ do you mean like the reason why all of us have such problems?
Sarah: So now you're talking about like. I mean, Steph, your staff and your brothers, mean, you're you're. How do I say this nicely? More normal of the four of you were, yes, you are. But I know you had talked about it before that, your dad was it wasn't Agent Orange. What was it? It was he was stationed somewhere that.
Sheena: Like health problems. I'm the most normal one out of everybody. He was the Camp Le June. They had the radioactive water. He was scheduled there from seventy-nine or not well. He was he was in the Marines, I think, from like I wanna say like seventy-eight to eighty four, somewhere along those lines. I don't between that time, during the time that they have radioactive water at Camp Le June.
Sarah: radioactive water. Yeah. I know you had talked about that I think in an earlier podcast that you wondered if that could have been some kind of
Sheena: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: reason why things happened. ⁓ I don't know what happened with Jason. And I barely remember what happened with Lauren. I just remembered you died very young.
Sheena: Yeah, two weeks before my ninth birthday. Yeah. ⁓ Jason had his he had spina bifida and also his brainstem didn't develop. So and my mom knew before and they did give her the option to terminate the pregnancy, but my mom chose not to. And then there's my sister who has spina bifida. and then a whole lot of other issues like Lennox fist out syndrome and ⁓ from an injury at a young age, a head injury and ⁓ mentally she's about thirteen. So and she's thirty how old is how old am I? I'm forty-two. So she's thirty-seven going on thirty-eight. And then Lauren, he had a rare brain tumor that and I I don't remember the name of it. ⁓ but he had it was one of the ones where it's
Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Sheena: very unlikely that they'll outlive toddler. Like it's usually diagnosed in infants and toddlers and they don't live beyond being a toddler. At least at that time. I don't know I don't know what kind it was what kind of tumor it was.
Sarah: He didn't live past being an infant, did he?
Sheena: No, he was ⁓ he died October twenty-fourth, nineteen ninety-two. And he was born December thirty first, nineteen ninety one. So he and he died two weeks before my ninth birthday, which is supposed to be your golden birthday.
Sarah: Your golden birth, and never to that.
Sheena: Yeah. I don't know what's supposed to be so golden about it because well
Sarah: Yeah, is it because it's your last year as single digits?
Sheena: No. Your golden birthday is the day is the age that you turn this the same day as your birthday. So like yours was when you were twenty eight.
Sarah: Okay, okay, because yours is the ninth of, okay. That doesn't make sense either though.
Sheena: I I I don't know. Anybody can fill us in on that. ⁓ I don't
Sarah: Yeah, I'll just look it up and see what golden birthdays are. Interesting.
Sheena: Yeah. And so has nothing to do with golden showers, I promise.
Sarah: Oh god, oh god, no golden showers, that's totally different subject, totally different subject, oh god. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Sheena: ⁓ so ⁓ before we end here, ⁓ you know, if this episode moved you or if you have a family story that's connected to death photography, we would generally love to hear it. ⁓ you can reach out to us through email, Instagram, also we're on threads. ⁓ so you know where to find us. ⁓ we have a Facebook page and you can email us, ⁓ which is so random and weird pod at gmail.com. And as always, if you are enjoying us as well, please leave a review, share an episode with somebody who would appreciate, and subscribe so you don't miss our next episodes. ⁓ and we will see you in the weird places.
Sarah: Read the word, warm-up. I love it. Love you guys. Thanks so much for joining us. Bye.
Sheena: Love you guys.
