Around the world there are many strange customs and rituals related to life, from birth to death, and some obsessions are inherited strange habits in the way of preparing for death.
Older people in Sweden tend to arrange their homes for long days, if they feel near their death so that they will have a good memory with their relatives. This old Swedish custom called “dastanning” is spreading all over the world.
84-year-old Lena Sandgren arranges her home in the heart of Stockholm for the day she will no longer live.
Sandgren put her affairs in order at home for about ten years, from utensils to books, to clothes, and left no section without putting her affairs in order. “I feel good when I get rid of my belongings,” adds the Swedish elderly, before setting aside a stack of books on botany. According to the German website, Deutsche Welle.
This sorting, known as “dastadning” in Swedish, is an old custom in this Scandinavian country, which is predicated on the elderly. Writer Margarita Magnusson, 86, explained its origins in 2017. “It is about taking care of all the details that we will leave after our death,” she says. She explains that “arranging the affairs of the house may bring good memories, and if this is not the case, then these belongings must be disposed of.”
As for her 53-year-old daughter, Jane, she believes that this habit primarily removes a burden from the relatives of the deceased. “All those who have jobs want to take care of the minimum details when their family is no longer alive.” “I really appreciate the work you’ve done and I’m glad to see this practice spread all over the world,” she adds with some enthusiasm.
Margarita Magnusson’s book, “The Swedish Art of Arranging Before Death,” has been translated into several languages and has become a “bestseller” according to the New York Times classification, and his Facebook page has about 18,000 followers. An American blog that applies the concepts of the book has more than 3 million views of its single tape on the Internet.