First Death

The man died in the morning, and I examined him at lunchtime.

I expected my first encounter with death in the flesh to be confronting and unreal. But truth be told, I did not think much about it. I went on with the rest of my day not thinking too much about what was happening in the morning.

The only thing that stood out to me was how his skin was so warm. How could someone be so warm yet not show any signs of life?

How strange, I thought. A body so warm, yet utterly still.

As if life had just stepped out for a moment, leaving the door ajar.

I told myself it was physiology. Muscle. Tissue. Residual heat.

But the mind is never satisfied with such clean explanations. Death resists definition. It is an abstraction dressed in silence; a concept that wears no face yet waits in every room.

Even now, while driving, while cooking, while laughing over drinks with friends, I catch something

a whisper in the wind,

a flicker in the corner of my eye,

a pause between thoughts

and there it is again.

Not grief, exactly. Not fear.

Just the quiet, ever-present hum of impermanence.

I find myself thinking about the man not just who he was, but that he was.

What dreams he dreamt. What mornings he believed he’d rise into.

And then I think of my own mornings

how easily I assume there will always be another.

In youth, time feels infinite. We live as if the clock will never strike its final hour.

But death, like a patient teacher, waits. And in its waiting, it teaches.

In healthcare, we speak of death the way we speak of taxes

an inevitability, stripped of its mystery.

We joke about it, perhaps to soften its edge.

But I wonder

How many of us truly feel alive?

How many of us move through days not realising we are breathing, blinking, becoming?

Oh! How many days have I lived unaware of the experience of living?

Third Year Medical Student