Death and other disasters.

You died on a Friday night. While I sat and played cards with friends and shared a bottle of duty free vodka, you lay in your penultimate bed and waited for the lights to go out.

You exhaled for the last time in Autumn. While we laughed and squealed with wild delight and spoke of dreams this lifetime to come.

That call came through at 8pm and I tried to be somber, I tried to switch from childish jokes to serious understanding, while the words sunk in that someone would die before my task could be complete.

I was destined to be the best, to write the story that would make the difference between graduate and honors. I was going to be a Journalist; I was going to uncover those stories that would change lives with words - stories that could incite rage or heartbreak. I struck a deal in a field of naivety and was prepared to fulfill it.

You died on a Friday night in a hospital bed under the careful vigil of your loving family. Before your last breath you asked your mother to respect your virgin body and put you into the hands of women like her. And so it came to be that our paths crossed, yours in death and mine in the pursuit of professional greatness.

My story was supposed to be about women in the business of death. Women, who lovingly bathed and lovingly prepared the deceased ready for their final journey. The article was about our human need to be loved and to ensure those we love are loved and cared for even after they are no longer of our space.

You died in the arms of your family and I wondered, much later, which was worse, the sudden loss of someone we love or a year of watching them melt before our eyes.

I was ready to write that article and when the call came through. The lady on the other end let me know it had been agreed. The board had approved my request and I would be granted a front row seat during someone’s final goodbye.

You died and your family in their grief where horrified to discover that the women’s funeral home that was to care for you in death had sent two men to collect you. Your mother broke down in failure and would not rest until women were found that would take care of every single part of your final journey.

On that Friday night as I played cards the phone rang and drunk on weekend silliness I accepted the opportunity to write this story, just as you lay dying.

‘I guess, for now, we just wait for someone to die’ that lady said...


And so, letting those words sink in, I drowned some niggling level of guilt in a haze of vodka and the clinical belief that ambition justifies everything. Then I waited.

On the Monday morning the phone rang at 5am.

Someone had died.

I dressed in my business suit and rushed to the funeral home. I don’t know what I expected, but I know it wasn’t you.

You died on a Friday night and on Monday morning they wheeled you before my eyes and I felt all the ambition drain from me. You were only 19. Your beautiful face held all the same hopes and dreams that mine did. Your long and lithe fingers curled slightly and your mouth was barely parted so that you looked like you were breathing softly in your sleep.

It occurred to me then that the business of death was not as clinical as I had hoped. It occurred to me that somewhere your mother was sleeping better having finally entrusted her baby into the arms of other women just like her. It occurred to me that while she slept I watched them bathe you, I watched them dress you and lovingly apply your makeup. It occurred to me that a journalist tracking your last moments was not what you had in mind the day you lay dying.

My story was supposed to be about women in the business of death. Women, who lovingly bathed and lovingly prepared the deceased ready for their final journey. The article was about our human need to be loved and to ensure those we love are loved and cared for even after they are no longer of our space.

The irony dawned on me too many moments too late.

I’m sorry!