There’s nothing in the world which teaches me to appreciate life quite the way death does.
When I was young, death seemed so far off for me that it didn’t seem real. Although I have a vivid memory of seeing the body of a man who had just been killed when I was about 10, that didn’t seem like something that could happen to me. It was only years later that I really found meaning in that.
I was one of the lucky ones who never had anybody in his life die other than the people we expect. My mother’s father died when I was about 5. I remember going to the funeral home and touching his cold body, but death didn’t seem surprising with an older person. All the other deaths I saw in the coming years were older people who were related to me. Not a one seemed surprising or “too soon.”
Some people experience a rough early introduction to death — especially those who unexpectedly lose a parent, a sibling or a close friend — but for me, death was almost an abstract concept.
Until the last few years. Death seems very real to me now.
Time is the most unrelenting enemy that any of us will face
Your ignored mistakes quickly become impossible to change
Sometimes we should ignore idiots who yell about non-existent racism
There are three kinds of lonely — and I don’t know which this is
To fall in love is to play with fire, but our deep need justifies risks
How can affluent and desperately poor live as two societies forever?
Zombie statists: ‘But if there’s no government, who’ll build roads?!’
Shame almost got me fired — and shame still haunts me years later
Be afraid, friends: Chicken Little says the sky is falling somewhere