weekend away

I'm in Massachusetts for the weekend with our daughter, who was very glad to see me. We talked some about death--some of her classmates went to the wake for the girl from her school who died, and it was open casket. That death was such a tragedy it is not surprising that students said the body didn't seem real.

I said that I believed that for older people a good death is possible. Our daughter thought Florence would be a good example, I think because she has had a full life. I said I wasn't sure Florence was going to feel ready. We talked about my father's death, which was sudden, the way he would have wanted it. We didn't mention John, but it still felt valuable to me to talk about death as something that can be natural and peaceful.