Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?

Big Questions from Tiny Mortals about Death

by Caitlin Doughty

Published by W. W. Norton & Company

Reviewed by Richard Ingram

Caitlin Doughty is a mortician, funeral home owner, New York Times best-selling author, and YouTube web series creator. If you can imagine a question about death, Caitlin has probably heard it and answered it.

Doughty asks and answers questions you might have thought about but likely never asked. After all, who do you ask if you want to know what would happen to an astronaut body in space, or what would happen if you ate a bag of popcorn before you died and were cremated? Those two questions and exactly 33 others are answered candidly, honestly, and with unforgettable humor in Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?

If you’re wondering where the questions for this book came from, think young and uncensored — that’s right, children. As Caitlin writes in the introduction, “…all the questions in this book come from 100 percent ethically sourced, free-range, organic children.”

Adults are often afraid to talk about and ask those “crazy” questions about death and dying. But no question is crazy. It’s how you perceive the question. Children don’t start out having those adult inhibitions about death. They learn that from adults. But until they learn those inhibitions, they are curious and are willing to simply ask any questions about death that come into their minds. They want to know more. Caitlin encourages children to ask questions and she provides answers they, and we as adults, can understand—for the most part, anyway.

What’s great about reading her book as an adult is that we as the reader can become the child asking the questions and then find ourselves better educated and informed about something as “simple” as death.

 After reading Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? I found myself online finding out more about Doughty, what else she has written, and watching some of her YouTube videos. In her writing and in her presentations, she is casual, comfortable, and humorous, but she always presents material clearly and with a solid understanding and knowledge that will probably leave you with even more questions about death and dying. Hopefully, you will discover that death does not have to be the taboo topic we think it needs to be. Rather, it’s a topic we need to talk openly about and explore with each other.

Other books by Caitlin Doughy include From Here to Eternity, Traveling the World to Find the Good Death, and Smoke Gets In Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory. If you’re like me, the titles of those books alone will make you want to pick up a copy. Her books now hold a special place in my unusual library section on death and dying that few others understand.

 Oh, yes, in case you were wondering, your cat will not eat your eyeballs. “Not right away, at least.” But your dog? Fido will eat you “without remorse.”

Richard Ingram is a volunteer with NH Alliance for End of Life Options. He lives in New Hampshire.