Seeing death as a pacifying victimization, as an affliction from the great beyond, as just desserts from an unjust life or, as it is often talked about these days in some religious circles, a nonevent, an illusion, an automatic transition: None of this comes from what dying is like or from knowing death well. All of it comes from our kind of death. It comes from our refusal to die, from enthroning sudden death as the savior of our last days.
