The touch of death

Today I touched another dead body. I work in an emergency room and although it's rare, we do lose people. Usually to a heart attack. It's never easy to see someone pass away right in front of your eyes and all I can think about is, I touched a dead body. It doesn't gross me out, it doesn't give me the willies, and it doesn't even seem creepy. It just makes me contemplate the fact that we are all just cells that without the proper mechanics can go - literally - in a heartbeat. I never thought I'd work in a place that required me to be around sick people, people that were looking for help, and people that would die. But I love where I work. It gives me a huge sense of being knowing that I was there when a life was saved - or when someone lost the energy to live.

This leads me into my next "Grandma Journal" Entry

Share a childhood memory about a death that affected you

The very first death that I can recall was the death of a waiter at my parent's favorite restaurant. He was a great waiter and remembered all of our names, what we usually ordered, and what our favorite desserts were. We tipped him well and asked for him every time we went to eat there. His name was Sergio and I remember asking my mom one day while we were dining there where he was because I hadn't seen him in a while.  My parents told me that he'd passed away from a disease called AIDS. The AIDS epidemic had just begun, but had not yet made the national news, so it was pretty much unheard of. She never explained to me what the disease was, so when I learned about it from the news and school, I was shocked at the implication that our beloved waiter was a homosexual. I was still young and this concept had never occurred to me. I didn't ever think it was possible that two men could love each other in that way. I remember contemplating this for nights on end as I laid in bed trying to sleep. Sex was a very taboo subject at home (at least I thought so), so I couldn't ask my parents about it. In the end, I remember coming to the conclusion that why should I care that two men were together. If they were happy, then I was happy that they were happy. Then it saddened me because I'd heard all the rumor and rhetoric about how men afflicted with this disease were being punished for their actions. How could love be punished? This one death opened my eyes to more than just dying, but to diseases and lifestyles that I'd never encountered before.   

http://www.worldaidsday.org/