All That Remains: A Life in Death

by Sue Black

‘Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live’ Norman Cousins

there is no comfort to be had from soft words spoken at a safe distance.

Since we can’t influence the creation of our lives, and their end is unavoidable, perhaps we should be focusing on what we can regulate: our expectations of the distance between them. Perhaps it is this we should be trying to manage more effectively by measuring, acknowledging and celebrating its value rather than its duration.

‘Humans belong to the group of conscious beings that are carbon-based, solar system-dependent, limited in knowledge, prone to error and mortal.’

the core components of every single cell, tissue and organ can be obtained only from what we ingest. We are, literally, what we eat.

the writer and scientist Isaac Asimov put it: ‘Life is pleasant, death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.’

Yet I find it apt and comforting that we will die together, I in my body and she in my mind.

My grandmother, a great believer in fate, taught me that we never know when an alignment of moments might produce the right alchemy for change.