Death

It is so unbelievably fascinating, yet so undefinable. It is illusive, unquestionable, and unquenchable. At some point, all of us will be laying on a table, waiting for that moment when our bodies will cease to breathe on its own, when our hearts stop beating, and we can finally rest.

In my line of work, death is a frequent visitor whom i've gotten to know very well. I've seen so many people die i've started to lose count. I remember the first person i took care of in their post-mordem stage. She'd just passed away about 5 minutes before, while her entire family had gone out to get something to eat (another interesting note on dying; how individuals die will vary. Someone may prefer to die in company, while another may wait until they're alone). My coworker had walked into the resident's room and then soon after, called me and the nurse in so we could declare her deceased. I remember being more than creeped out while handling a dead person; i was mortified. I'd never seen a dead body, not even my own grandparents. This lady was cold in the extremities  which i later learned was a normal part of the dying process, and still warm around her tummy and back. Her eyes were shut, but her mouth refused to stay closed...my coworker told me as we cleaned her up that the morticians would have to sew it shut. I remember the smell of death in the room; not like formaldehyde like a lot of us are used to in labs at school. It was more like a fleshy, old smell. It's difficult to describe...kind of like old mushrooms?

Several dozen deaths later, my last remaining grandparent passed away, and i volunteered to do her post-mordem care at the hospital she was staying in. I took her catheter and IV's out, then washed her up (even though the nurses said they already had. In my opinion, they didn't do a good enough job). My mother dressed her up in pink because it was her favorite color, and my aunt curled her hair and put a light touch of eyeshadow and lipstick on her face. When the morticians came to pick her up, we told them not to embalm her, because she wouldn't want her body to be preserved in any way. When we laid her in the ground, she looked just as beautiful and rosy as when she was still breathing.

The different rituals people have for funerals and body preparations are fascinating. The Irish have wakes, where they lug the dead body around and drink a lot. The Tibetans have "sky burials", in which they cut up the human body and expose them on a mountaintop for animals, specifically birds, to eat. These all seem so strange to us, but if we were born there, our rituals would seem just as weird.

An interesting video i found on dying:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBDz-nALvGo