Dying..Not like this?

 

I was young, working as a nurse in an aged care home. I’d seen death before—uncles, aunts, beloved pets—but this was different. This was the waiting.

One of the residents was nearing the end, and the family had gathered. The curtains were drawn tight, the room unnaturally dark. Music played—slow, sorrowful, the kind of background noise someone once decided was appropriate for dying. And everyone was whispering. As if silence made it more sacred.

But to me, it didn’t feel sacred. It felt suffocating.

I remember standing there thinking, Is this really it? Is this how we do death?

Because everything in me screamed: Not like this.

There was no warmth. No stories. No laughter. No life. Just dim light, staged reverence, and the sense that death was something to tiptoe around.

That moment stayed with me. Not because it was profound—but because it felt so wrong.

And quietly, deep inside, something stirred:

A vow that when death came for the ones I love—or for those I would one day serve—it would be different.

It would be real. Honest. Human. Whole.

I didn’t know it then, but death had already started choosing me.