Most weeks the idea I present for this blog kicks around my head for some time until it becomes fully formed. Sometimes, however, I wake up on a Wednesday morning and have no idea what topic I will write on. Today was one of those rare days. I have a topic I am working on, but it is not ready. The idea needs more research, and so I was left without an idea. This morning at my day job I asked two of my friends who know what I do, “Give me a topic on death. What do you want to know that you do not already know?” They looked at me with such shock and horror streaming from their eyes. It was as if I had just committed some taboo, which of course I did. I forget that even when people know what I do, and know how important this topic is to my heart, that they themselves are not comfortable talking about death. This reaction also told me I need to be more open myself with the topic of biological death. I need to be more attentive to those who appear open the topic. I hope one day that the topic of biological death will not be such a taboo topic. Sometimes I feel dejected by the work I do. Sometimes I feel that the work it too much and wonder what change can I really make. When I meet up with an experience like I had this morning, I am reminded of the importance of my work and how suited I really am to it. I must encourage people whenever I can to talk about death so that when they must deal with death, they might have some place to begin their work. To be fair to my friends, once the horror of my question passed, they were able to give me suggestions which I might cover in the future.
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