Death is nothing to us

Dead bodies seem like sacks of dust to me. I don't see a person when I look at a dead body. I see an envelope where a person once lived. The force that stirred that dust is gone, and with it, the thing I loved.

Beyond the bright anguish of fresh grief, I have no attachment to bodies, and I don't care what happens to mine after I'm gone, but I've always been fascinated by the memento mori. It seems an odd way to hold onto the memory of love: by making a picture of the moment of your greatest anguish, of the moment when the person has ceased to be. It's like keeping a picture of a package that held the letter that brought some dreadful news. It's not the letter; it's not the news. It's merely what was left when everything was done—some wrapping paper, a bit of string, a few clots of stuffing—as evidence of what was lost.

While I find the memento mori strange, I find the pictures in the Life Before Death series strangely soothing, as if of strangers who have crossed a threshold and left something behind to reassure me of how deep and quiet is that long, long sleep.

[eta: link fixed]

Courtesy of dooce.