The Great Adviser

In this country, and in much of the western world, we’re divorced from death. People we know die, which may be devastating personally, but we treat their deaths in a very sanitary way. We have a funeral, and we put them into the ground or cremate them. But death is something we don’t like to think about. What I found in Haiti, and in Africa as well, was that you were living, breathing, eating, and smelling death every day. In a way, it can become a great adviser: When you’re so aware of it, when you’re surrounded by it, it teaches you to live to the fullest—if it doesn’t vanquish you first. It either gets you because it repels you, or it gives you a familiarity, which can be very comforting. You see it, you become used to it, and you realize that, yeah, it’s inevitable. You even start to see some other things within it. It’s like a wall you think is painted a solid color until you get right up to it. Then you start to see all of the little aspects of detail that suddenly give you a whole other vision of it. I think my experience with death in Haiti was very liberating, because it becomes familiar and less frightening.