Respecting Death as a Natural Phenomenon
The simple truth is that everyone dies and you don’t have to like it.
The one commonality among humans is that we’ve all been touched by death. And for anyone who thinks they haven’t, you will be. It comes for all of us and for all those around us — from the people you’ve never heard of to intimate partners and family.
I’ve always had a fascination with what happens to the human body over the course of a lifetime, and this includes all the gruesome details about what happens to cause and because of physical death. I can be a bit morbid, I know. I was 19 when my younger brother died in a car accident and the first thing I did when we were allowed to see him in the casket before his viewing was to try to explain out loud why his face looked the way it did. I think my father said something along the lines of, “Always so analytical.”
I’ve come to understand that death is how I make sense of the world around me. It led to me studying medical science and pathology, though as a naive and sheltered young adult who had lost two of her closest childhood playmates unexpectedly over the course of 5 years I originally headed in the direction of medical research because I thought I could make a difference. I think I held onto that optimistic view of death until this last year and a half. Now…
