BURLINGTON — As Vermont’s population ages, more people are talking about what it means to grow older — including having honest conversations about death.
Producer Sadie Friedman first met Melly Bock at a documentary screening about natural burial. Sadie is 21, Melly is 82, and they’re both interested in talking about death.
A few weeks later, they met back up at the Lake Champlain waterfront — at a spot that’s special to Melly — and recorded this conversation.
Melly Bock: This is where I dropped my husband’s ashes into the lake. And since this is going out on the airwaves, before I came down, last week, I Googled and found out if it’s legal to drop ashes in the lake. And it’s absolutely legal! I was so glad to hear that.
So I think maybe I dropped it right here, and the ashes formed a beautiful leaf-like pattern in the water, and it was just exquisite. It was like a miracle to see that pattern in Lake Champlain, because my husband loved the lake so much.
My name is Melly. I live in the Old North End of Burlington. I’m a widow of two and a half years, I’m 82 and a half, and I was a registered nurse, and dealt a lot with death. I was always the one who wanted to stay with the patient who was dying, if they were alone. So I’ve always been interested in death.
Sadie Friedman: Do you talk about death with anybody else? Any of your friends?
Melly Bock: Yeah, all of them.
Sadie Friedman: Is it a big topic of conversation? Does it come up a lot?
Melly Bock: No, I’m the only one who has ever brought it up. And I don’t do it each time! It’s just, they know what I’ve been thinking about, and they’re interested — but not that interested.
Sadie Friedman: What do you think sets you apart from them in that way? Why is it that you’re thinking about it and talking about it and they aren’t?
Melly Bock: What sets me apart is that I’m the only one who’s been in the medical field and has been around death and dying. And I’m the oldest. And I just went through my husband’s death.
Sadie Friedman: What do you wish people understood about aging?
Melly Bock: Well, that every single human being ages differently. And that it’s good to have a lot of friends, which I do. And a loving family. And that we’re all going to need help — unless we get hit by a truck. We’re all going to need help, because none of us know when we’re going to die.
Is there a God? We don’t know. What happens when we die? We don’t know. We just know that we are alive in this body, in this time in history, and we only have to be in the here and now, because since we don’t know about God or reincarnation or all that, we just have to be the kindest human beings we can.