Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death

4 to 4.5 stars. This was a really good book that was actually written with children as the target audience here. One might be surprised to find a book talking about death and decomposition to be aimed at kids, but Doughty says in the preface that it's actually children instead of adults that have the most bare-faced questions about death and who are the less squeamish about the subject. She believes that everyone, whatever the age, should understand the realities of death because it's a necessary part of life, whether in our dealing with the loss of people around us or in confronting our own mortality, and that's actually a pretty heartening thought.

I've followed Caitlyn Doughty on her YouTube channel for a while now. When I first discovered her channel, my “morbid” curiosity took hold of me and I watched video after video. But I grew to really enjoy not just the entertaining and light-hearted (but always respectful) way she broached the topic of death, I was also surprised by the attitude she hopes to inspire in more people: that we should be less afraid of death, a phenomenon that is as necessary to life as birth, and to understand more about it. This book is no different. I started this very late last night when I was exhausted from finishing another book, but her tone still made me burst out laughing twice in the first couple of chapters.

Some interesting nuggets that I learnt from this book which I hadn't already known from her YouTube channel:

1. In hot, humid climates like where I am, if you bury a person or a dead animal in shallow grave, you're not likely to find anything left after a few months, not even bones. They're all easily degradable in these conditions, and especially in the shallow layers of earth where it's richest in oxygen and therefore decomposing microbes.
2. Differently sized adults could still fit in the same urn after cremation because height matters more than weight in terms of how much ashes a person will end up being.
3. Post-mortem poops happen and morticians have a variety of ways to deal with them, somewhat explained in the book.
4. My turf, Singapore, is given a paragraph here! Caitlyn talks about crowded cemeteries and how America might eventually run out of burial space, but then also give the example of Singapore and Hong Kong (but mostly Singapore) as immensely population-dense places with zero space for burial. We only have one cemetery here still open for burial but even then you only get that plot for 15 years then you're exhumed, cremated, and stored in a columbarium. That happened with my grandfathers who both passed decades before I was born and before our population density got this crowded, so they were both buried for all these decades until very recently in the past 5-10 years it was mandated that they had to be exhumed, cremated, and put in a columbarium.

If you're open to learning more about death in a light-hearted sort of way, including some weird questions about it (”What happens if you eat popcorn kernels before getting cremated?”), this book - and Caitlyn's YouTube channel - is definitely for you.

I'm going to list the questions that were asked & answered in the book and write what I want to recall as “spoilers” next to them so it's easily organized.
Will my cat eat my eyeballs? Not impossible, but they'll go for easier things first like lips and nose after a few days. Also some deceased dog owners had nips on them and the thinking is that the dogs are trying to wake them up.
What would happen to an astronaut's body in space?
Can I keep my parents' skulls after they die? No. In the US most places have laws that would make this nearly impossible.
Will my body sit up or speak after I die? no, but there can be little twitches (I think she mentioned that the longest record time of a movement was something like 12 hours after death) and possibly what sounds like an airy moan if air comes out over the vocal chords
What happens to pets buried in the backyard? (about decomposition rates) Biggest factor seems to be the soil type, depth pet was buried at, and size
Can I preserve my dead body in amber?
Why do we turn funny colors when we die?
How does a whole adult fit in a tiny box after cremation? turns out on average women's ashes weigh about 4 pounds and men's around 6, based on height.
Will I poop when I die?
Do conjoined twins always die at the same time?
If I die making a stupid face will it be stuck? not really, but in general bodies sometimes need assistance in keeping eyes and mouth closed.
Can we give Grandma a Viking funeral? Loved how Doughty got into debunking the flaming arrow onto the boat pyre. Was cool to learn that some ships were brought on land to be burned with the deceased
Why don't animals dig up all the graves? Usually it's too much work, unless a body is buried too shallow
What would happen if you swallowed a bag of popcorn before being cremated? not much, but pace makers can explode so professionals double check for them
If someone is selling a house do they have to disclose if someone died on the property?
What if they make a mistake and bury me while I'm in a coma?
What would happen if you died on a plane?
Do bodies affect the water we drink?
What happens to the food we ate right before we died? I thought it was cool how so went into the forensics of it as well as the anthropological angle
Can everyone fit into a casket? Basically, yes.
Can you donate blood after you die? Was happy to learn yes, which makes sense as organs can be donated
We eat dead chickens, why not dead people? Cannibalism isn't illegal in the US, but usually how one would obtain remains would be. Also prion and other diseases and other foods are better in terms of nutrition and calories
What happens when a cemetery is full? They go vertical and some places rent the burial space
Why don't bugs eat people's bones? She didn't cover it, but it makes me think about how there aren't many creatures that eat wood, I imagine for most of the same reasons, need specialized teeth/digestion and are the nutrients gained worth it? She did mention the bone eating worm, which was only "discovered" in the early 2000's, that feed on the bones of dead whales
What happens to solders who die far away? some are returned and some remain
Can I be buried with my hamster? not in most places, would have to go to special pet cemetery
Will my hair and nails keep growing? no, the skin retracts making it look like there was growth
Can I use human bones from cremation to make jewelry? Unlikely no as the bones will be too brittle to manipulate. However ashes from cremation have been used to make jewelry, tattoos, and paintings
Did mummies stink when they were wrapped?
Why was grandma wrapped in plastic at the wake? To prevent leakage

Each question is given about 5 to 10 minutes with Doughty answering the question and expanding on it. Again, I love how her voice and way of speaking. I appreciate her covering multiple cultures and speaking respectfully, while not resorting to euphemisms as she says that the questions came from kids.