Life Through the Lens of Death

My father is a mortician, someone whose career is involved in the business of funeral rites, the embalming and cremation or burial of the deceased, and the planning and arrangement of the funeral services.  To put it simply, he works with dead people.

Growing up, it was normal for me to ride in the car with my dad on a late night “removal,” to walk to the funeral home after school to catch a ride home, or for the flowers on my dining room table to be a mix of whatever was left at the last services. I grew up surrounded by death. It is something I have experienced first hand as well. Be it close grandparents, aunts and uncles, or classmates, it is safe to say I have seen more than a normal amount of my contemporaries die.

You might think that constantly experiencing death and witnessing grief would spiral me into a deep state of depression, but surprisingly it hasn’t. In fact, it has had the opposite effect on me. Don’t get me wrong, grief and death have played their fair share of sadness in my life. However, being constantly reminded of the mortality of others, and myself, makes me handle life differently. When you realize life is fleeting, it changes how you prioritize your intentions and time. It makes a lot of seemingly huge issues in the world seem like petty distractions, and it makes the gamble of faith seem all the more logical.

Let me explain.

Grades are important. Having things like a stellar resume and a steady supply of internships are important. Landing a killer job after graduation, being successful, and paying off loans are important. However, if they are all I have when I leave college, my time would be a waste. Instead, I would be a robot who was efficient in taking the steps to be successful in life, but I would know no one. Relationships and connections are more valuable in the end. When you are 92 and in the hospital on your deathbed, who is going to be there with you? Your success, or the ones you have poured your life into?

That seems like a lot of big picture thoughts, but really in my everyday life, it makes me react to things with a different perspective. It shifts my priorities from the everyday into the long term.

It may seem morbid, but I think that we would all be a little better, a little kinder, and have more of a purpose if we lived life more like we were dying. After all, we are.

Michael is a junior majoring in communication with a concentration in media arts and design, and minors in fine arts and sociology.