Family Deaths

Death. Did you feel that shiver down your spine?  It's something I dealt with frequently during my time at Medical School.  First the cadavers in the Dissection Lab, then in real life.

There was a death in the family about a month ago.  It wasn't someone I saw regularly, but enough to make me take time to cogitate about it.  January is a time of several anniversaries of death, so there's plenty of it around at the moment and it makes me think.

Regardless of age, health, gender, fitness, looks, we all die. Some day.

I noticed massive difference in how I deal with professional deaths and personal deaths.  Death changed me professionally.  After several you must try to preserve your sanity.

In a professional capacity death was something to 'deal' with and, if you were me, nip to the staff loo for a cry and big hug from a Nurse.  But even after that, it follows you.  It creeps up at inopportune moments such as the big MCQ exams at the end of each semester - the "Progress Test" as it is called; or a flashback whilst being examined on clinical skills, but you only have that one shot to get it right - there's no time to process the memory at that time.  

Source: http://www.generalcomics.com/funny-directory/15/1505/12.php 

The first person I saw die as a Medical Student was a lovely old lady who I was happily sat listening to whilst holding her hand.  Then, without any drama, her eyes closed mid-word and she was perfectly still.  I know I'm boring but to actually bore someone to death... Then it dawned on me, that was a real life dead body.  It looked no different to a sleeping person.  Then she was taken away and I had the rest of the day to get on with as though nothing had happened.

A personal death does all those things, but more consistently and to some extent, the fact there was probably nothing you could do about it makes it more difficult to shake off. 

Source: http://www.aperfectworld.org/metaphors.htm

It is driven home every time you go to the cinema; talk to your grandparents; watch the news; read books; listen to music; read poetry.  The fact that death ends lives.  Time is finite.  But we ignore it and carry on because we are sure it won't happen until we are ready.  It might be today or tomorrow.

Ask yourself - If the last person I spoke to were to die at midnight, would I have helped make their death a happy one? 

Not for one moment am I being preachy and vouching for an enduring 'do unto others' - living by that all the time is impossible.  You cannot live as if there is no tomorrow because ironically there just isn't time! 

I was lucky enough to see my relative shortly before their death, because I took a chance to grab an opportunity, and inconvenienced myself to visit.  It meant a lot to them, and now to me.

Maybe we should all start being nicer to each other, or at least one of our two faces should, because death is there with all of us all the time.