humbled
 

I guess part of growing up is experiencing life to its fullest extent. Although I have been to funerals and seen open caskets in several times, I’ve never seen someone’s last moments among us. Wednesday night I saw a man have a heart attack, fall face down, and hideously gasp his last breaths of air. CPR didn’t help, apparently his heart basically exploded.

I never though something would affect me quite like this experience has. It’s definitely one of the most humbling moments of my life.

mortality is very difficult for most people which is why we all live in denial about death.

Death is an important part of life.

I too had something like that happen to me on the way to work in the lobby of the building. I stepped right over a man who collapsed in front of me. I turned and paused until I saw someone who knew CPR come and attend to him, and then I left the area as I would only be a hindrance.

Later that day I found out it was a coworker I had just met and he didn't make it.

I went to the medical examiner's to see my daughter's father and best friend. I touched his hand and face, and looked at his injuries. I was also shown the accident pictures by the investigating officer. This was the closest person in the world to me, laying on a slab, non-existent to my world anymore. It was forever moving, and changed me permanently. Those images are eternally, deeply etched into my brain.

As a former EMT, I worked on dead people, brought them back & watched them die again. It was sad but you went on with your business as usual afterward. I wasn't changed by death until it was my dad. Once you see the person you always looked up to for strength and support lying motionless on a bed, knowing you will never talk to him again, that is something you never forget.

I was in the room when my grandfather died.

All his children were in the room (including my mother) and they decided it would be alright to leave just for a moment to get cleaned up and grab something to drink. I was on my way as well, but had stopped at the door to talk to a nurse when he passed away. He just looked so old there lying in bed. His face was so wrinkled and worn. After he died, however, all that seemed to go away. His face just seemed to smooth out and he looked so peaceful.

It was so sudden as he was still in pretty stable condition. Personally, I think he knew it was time to go and waited (for lack of a better phrase) for us all to be out of the room before he decided to go. It just seems like something he'd have done.

I hope when I go, I have go just as he did. Surrounded by family and on his own terms.

I recently saw the corpse of my friend's father. It happened by accident - to make a long story short, we were suppoused to check in with the medical examiner to identify the remains, and I ended up participating in it. It was a first time I saw a dead person up close, and I didn't feel anything. I had more of a humbling moment though at mny father's funeral. I didn't see him die, and I didn't see his body, but just the thought of never seeing him again made me fall to pieces. After that, though, I never felt it again, and I'm not shocked to see dead people. I guess it depends on the person how they react (as does anything, really).

My mom's family traditionally has open-casket funerals, so I've seen some dead relatives. Somehow with them sitting in a coffin, all neatly dressed and made up, it just doesn't seem real. I remember my great-grandmother didn't look like herself at all, and my 5-year-old mind made up all sorts of great conspiracy theories. Aunt Dot didn't look like herself. Neither did Unkle Ferd or Aunt Ruth.

When I saw my grandfather's body in the emergency room, about ten minutes after his death, though, that was the real thing. It was the second time he'd been brought to the emergency room, after several years of kidney dialysis and general ill health. The first time we were told to hurry down there as he may not make it, and arrived to find him eating pudding and giving his nurses hell. So when we got the second call, my mom and I sort of rolled our eyes and moseyed out of the house.

When we got to the hospital, we found grandma sitting on a bench outside the emergency room smoking a cigarrette and crying. We'd just missed him, by a few minutes. Together the three of us held each other, me, my mother, and my grandmother. We let grandma finish her smoke, and we went back into his room in the ER (the same room where I'd had my broken arm set, years and years earlier). The main thing I remember was that his jaw was hanging slack. Grandma tried to close his mouth, but it kept hanging open.

I think I was 14 or 15. It completely changed how I saw life and mortality. I gave up that teenage invincibility thing right there. It's not really fair to say that I "got careful" or started behaving more responsibly, but I was always aware of the worst-case consequences of whatever reckless actions I took.

I was with my brother when he died, holding his hand when I told the doctors to stop working on him. I'll never forget how he looked - completely unlike himself. Bloated, blue, almost unrecognizable. I had to keep telling myself "that's not him, that's not him, that's not him." It was just his body. I told him it was okay, that he could go now. In a way it was peaceful. Later, when they'd cleaned his body up, though, and we got to say goodbye, I just lost it. Seeing that body there and knowing that it's not him anymore was just such a shock. The whole thing was very humbling, but also very, I don't know, steeling. I never knew before how strong I could be. I know now.