On death

My father’s wife passed yesterday. I was the one who gave him the news. 

My relationship with death vacillates, as I imagine it would for many people. 

Yet each night we long to sleep a deep and dreamless sleep, a mini death. 

Sinking into no thing land. Non-existence. There is a beauty there.

When I worked as a medical student in the anatomy labs, surrounded by the dead, working on the dead to understand human anatomy, I would wonder about the animating force of life. 

The flame, weightless, invisible flame of life. This eternal mystery. The humbling experience of never knowing from whence it comes or where it goes. No tech lord,  no arrogant billionaire knows. Neither can they escape, despite their money and power, this stage of life.

It comes for us all. Sometimes as a relief. Mostly as an unwanted companion.

It leaves the living hollowed out and grieving. 

Does this flame called life, the spirit, live beyond the human encapsulated body? 

We do not know, and shall not know until our time. Yet when I consider the astounding marvel of life, its miracle and beauty, it would not surprise me in the least if our spirit lives eternal. 

Perhaps we wake, as we do from a deep, dreamless sleep, to discover we are in another existence.

I notice my fear of this. Of death. I notice our refusal to discuss it openly with others. 

Our Western European culture has a twisted relationship to death. The people of the land I live upon hold a different view. I might well learn from them, and the many others who walk with death beside them each day, in every conversation and relationship.

Not to be feared. But to befriend.

Photo Taken December 10th 2025, Article published December 10th 2025