On death, marking an anniversary.
In my 27 years of life, I have become well acquainted with death. We have met in hospital rooms, on highways, in my sickbeds and bathrooms. The more we meet, the more I get a sense of what he looks like, the faster I recognize him in our next encounter. The thing about being human, is that we all live like this. We all live, knowing that death is near. We have spent lifetimes and industries attempting to eliminate, outlast, or outrun death, and yet still we see him out of the corner of our eye. Like humans, Death is an endurance predator. He is patient, and will follow until we run out of breath. In the west, our response has largely become an attempt to pretend we do not see him. To flee from any and every reminder of his shadow looming over us, in the hope that perhaps we will be the first to escape, or at least to find peace and fun until our time comes. And yet in order to do this, we must cut out any mention or notion of his reach, including those he has ...