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I've had quite a bit of experience with death over the years.  While it doesn't necessarily get easier to process regardless of frequency, I have noticed that there is tremendous community in the supportive network that can come together during or after suffering.

-Katie Miller

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This summer, I had a few reminders of my own mortality. I went to Mexico for two months to get to know my family, but the only time I really saw them was when I was in the hospital. The first time I went, I was simply getting a check up after a small but rattling motorcycling accident. I remember time slowing down as I saw the other motorcycle speed, then swerve into me. I remember telling myself "Okay well you're about to get hit. There it is. Twist, cover, okay you're good". It did not hit me until all the pedestrians came to my aid that I could have died. I was shook for weeks, just in time to end up in the hospital again with amoebas that, if untreated for even a week more, would have resulted in my death. All of these things reminded me that I am mortal, and that life is indeed a gift.
-Miriam

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I have been extremely fortunate over the years to have little to no experience of death. Very few family members whom I have been close with have passed, only a non-related grandmother who I was never really close with. The only experience with death I have had little impact on me, as it was an unknown individual who had gotten into a road accident and I saw the aftermath, I have yet to experience what the personal impact of loss will be like, and how it will affect me.

-Neil Griffith

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I'll admit, I haven't had a lot of experience with death. Three of my grandparents were already dead when I was born, and my last grandmother is still kicking. I have a large extended family, but so far I haven't lost any aunts, uncles, or cousins to war or freak accident.

My personal experiences with death have been through pets. My parents owned two cats when I was born, and when I was a kid I played with them all the time. Java was the elderly, responsible one. I would sometimes play a game where I pretended she was my mom. PJ was the sickly, eccentric one. He thought he was a dog, had frequent "accidents", and was an expert at escaping collars and harnesses. I really loved them both, and their deaths were the first I experienced. Java was the first to go. Though generally healthier, she was nearly nineteen and when she didn't come back home one night my mom woke my brother and I early in the morning to tell us.

My second experience with death was with my friend's chicken. I was with my friend and her mom when they went to buy chicks and ducklings, and carried the box of chickens in my lap on the drive to their house, holding it above my knees so it wouldn't be jostled by bumps. I've always loved chickens, so I would always volunteer to help out with feeding them whenever I visited their farm. As the chicks grew, people began naming them. There was one that was white with black markings, including striking triangles beside her eyes. I got to name her Bogolanfini - after an East African black-and-white wedding cloth - and would always check in with her when I visited. She was a gentle chicken who let me hold her and didn't peck me. As she grew older she seemed to understand when someone was coming to feed her and when they were just walking by. But life on a farm is dangerous, and during an ongoing battle with raccoons, she was taken. Although, I didn't have much time with her, her death was really hard on me. Both because I'd seen her grow up from a little chick, and because of the terrible way she'd died.

However, the worst death was our third cat. When I was in middle school, our family talked about getting another pet, and I begged my parents for a calico cat. We found one we all loved with a black "X" across her mouth. I named her Koi and loved her to death. I used my first camera to take a million photos of her, wrote a song about her, I dressed up as her for Halloween (including a mask I painted myself), and just generally doted on her. Then one day she didn't come home. Unlike our other cats who had been very old or cancerous when they vanished, Koi was in her prime at only six years old. We made "Lost Cat" posters and I hung them up all around the neighborhood. It was then I realized there were a lot of "Lost Cat" pictures in our neighborhood. I week later we saw raccoons in our yard. One of them was missing an ear and a tail. Koi's death was definitely the hardest. I still can't think about her without crying, and even though we adopted two kittens who we've now had longer then we had her, I've never been able to love them.

I don't know how I'll handle losing a human being close to me, and I won't pretend losing a pet is the same. But I'll always love these animals and cherish their memory. I'm not particularly religious, but I do believe there's an afterlife, and I hope to see them there again someday.

- Olivia

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While both sets of my grandparents have died and several of my aunts, I do not feel particularly impacted by death. My grandparents and aunts all died when I was very little, before I had a chance to form a bond or even have memories to hold of them. While other family friends have passed, along with students at various schools I've attended, I've yet to lose someone close to me. With that being said, I am an extremely emotional and empathetic person and tend to feel and share the pain of those around me. When my maternal grandmother passed, while I was not overly emotional for myself, I wept for (and with) my mother. When friends' siblings have passed I have endured their pain with them. I am unsure how I am going to react when someone I am truly close to dies, but I know that whoever I am after that will be thoroughly altered.

-Isis

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My personal experience with death and loss has varied. I lost my first grandparent when I was about a year old, therefore I was not affected much by it. Two years ago was when my experience of death expanded when I lost my grandfather after he battled cancer for a few months. Dealing with his loss was very difficult, not only because of his physical loss, yet also because of the mourning that occurred in my family. Seeing my uncles, aunts, cousins and loved ones come together and console one another was a powerful and difficult time, we were all feeling a sense of emptiness and denial at the fact of losing a family member. Unfortunately, short there after, about a year apart, I lost both of my grandmothers and experienced similar struggles and a deep feeling of togetherness and solidarity with my family as a result of the losses, the hardest would certainly be seeing how distraught my parents were.

-Santi

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Both my Great-Grandparents passed this past year. It's strange and surreal sometimes - there's things that'll remind me of them still around. I didn't know them as well as I should have, but the impact it had on the entire extended family was resounding and unfortunately lasting. Seeing the pain of it in everyone else has been hard.
- Matúš

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My grandpa died when I was 3, and although I don't particularly remember hearing about it, I specifically remember walking into the bathroom at our house and finding my mom broken down, crying alone. I remember being confused and sad because I saw my sweet mom in so much pain.  I couldn't fully understand what was going on then, but I know I must have given her the most loving hug I could.

Claire

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My first memory of death was when I was about eleven years old. My mother's close friends husband had passed away, and they were having a wake in the house. My mother forced me to go, and I felt weird about it, never having seen a dead body before. It was strange looking into that coffin, having seen Jack alive a few weeks prior. Everyone was touching him, giving kind words and offering kisses to his cold cheeks. I refused to touch him, the thought scared me. Here was someone who had been warm and breathing, talking and living, and now they were just a cold shell. I wondered, where was HE? The essential part of him? What happens in death and what happens after?

-Justine Grassie

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This summer one of my closest friends passed away. His death was unexpected and has had a very deep impact on my life. I still think about him and his family every day.  I have also lost 2 of my grandparents and all of my great grandparents.

-Hannah

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Several years back, I remember my mom getting a heartbreaking phone call that one of our family friends had taken his life. We were taken aback by the sudden tragedy and we spent many days mourning and trying to comfort his wife. It was one of my first experiences of having someone close to my family and I, being taken away. He was like an uncle to me and it was hard to come to terms with never being able to hear his jokes, have him join us on our annual camping trips, or even being able to see him.

-Jonathan

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In the past five years or so I've lost a few people that were close to me. When I was 17, my grandfather had a stroke and hospitalized for a few weeks before he passed away. My family was able to visit and say goodbye (although he was unconscious for most of that time). My uncle passed a year later after a long battle with cancer. Both of those deaths in my family were expected on some level. We all knew they were going to die, so we had time to say our goodbyes the best we could. Two years ago however, one of my friends from high school died very suddenly. He had his tonsils removed and died the next day from complications.  It was so sudden it was truly shocking.

-Jeremy

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I have a pretty large family and we're all very close. Unfortunately, just this past summer, we lost our great-grandma. Grandma was 93. She was showing signs for months, giving us random scares that maybe her time was that day or within the next week. However, after months of visiting our fragile great-grandma, we walked into the hospice and they told my little sister and I to stay by the door because they were removing the body. It wasn't the best way to find out your great-grandma died, but in the moment it  also felt like our last goodbye to her.
Family from around the country came around for her funeral and we were very fortunate to have such a loving and lively great-grandma.

-Genevieve

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I haven’t any direct experiences with the death of another person. My great grandparents are still alive. However, I am experiencing the death of the young man inside of me. When that version of me finally dies, I hope it to live on in my heart, like a spirit I may visit and vise versa. As he dies, I feel myself changing into an older person; a man. I hope, that one day I can become a complete human being. With the death of the boy inside of me comes the death of old grudges, arbitrary expectations, and old memories. My desire for a father & mothers constant love die and fade away, apologies I felt I deserved & false truths fade away, memories that distract me from my bliss fade away.
As that young man dies, a little bit each day, it’s painful and ecstatic; a spirit of awareness incubates in my soul… an awareness that tells me of the dualities of this world. That death brings life, pain brings joy, good & bad are one in the same, sacrifice brings bliss. I start to realize the “good” choices I have yet to make, and the “horrible” choices of my past.
When the day comes, that someone I love dearly passes away… I hope to persevere. With the strength of those around me had within themselves - in those moments.

-Chris

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Thankfully, I have not dealt with the death of a significant other or family member in my lifetime. However, when I was about 16 back in high school, one memory of death stands out. I was walking around the neighborhood and night and saw a dead body hanging from a tree around 1 in the morning. Although I did not know the person, I spent a long time thinking about what pain this person must have been going through in their life. To this day, I am still impacted by that experience.

-max

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When I was a senior in high school, I lost both of my grandparents, my grandpa went first and then his wife a few months later. I wasn't super close to them, they were of the old world. Yet at their funerals I got to see sides of them that I hadn't before. I was pretty gloomy about the whole ordeal for some time,  but it taught me a lot. I've come to appreciate funerals more as a celebration of life and love. Since then, I've taken an interest in stoicism (say what you will about the stoics, they certainly understood how to quell death anxiety).
-Paolo

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I am super fortunate in that, while I have been to my fair share of funerals, I have never experienced the death of anyone super close to me. Unfortunately, my grandmother is not doing super well right now. She has multiple serious brain aneurysms and is at high risk for stroke at really any time. I am really not looking forward to when her time comes but am thankful that I get to spend time with her now. A lot of people don't get that.
- Viviana

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I have a personal experience with death that might be unique compared to some other stories. I am named after my father's brother who was shot and killed before I was born. My father is kind of the stereotypical asian dad. He is distanced and does not really open up much. To this day, the only information I really know is what I managed to find online. At one point I had the whole case file bookmarked on my phone. To me, it was fascinating because it was literally the story of my name. What happened to my uncle was tragic but at the same time I was not born.

- Thomas

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I experienced death when my Uncle Mark died on Christmas Day when I was 9 years old. I  was in the living room of our then apartment, when I heard my mom crying in her bedroom. I went in and she told me that my uncle had died and I started crying too. It was absolutely heartbreaking seeing my mom, this strong, beautiful, and tough woman, crying and being vulnerable. I'm just glad that we were there for each other during a really hard time.

- Rosel Hermita

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When I was 11 I lost my grandfather to a heart attack. It was my first experience with death. It made me ask a lot of questions, and I learned a lot from the experience. The experience the first major loss my entire family had since I’ve been around.
Daniel Maloy

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2 years ago I lost my baby cousin who was only 3 days old. It was one of the most heartbreaking experiences that my family went through. It was very hard for me because I was asked to speak at her funeral.
Alexia Nono

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Lost my mom to lung cancer when I was 21, a senior in college. She was diagnosed Dec. 1, 1972, Died on Nov. 2, 1973. Hardest months of my life.  With her when she died. luminous experience. 

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Lost my mom to lung cancer when I was 21, a senior in college. She was diagnosed Dec. 1, 1972, Died on Nov. 2, 1973. Hardest months of my life.  With her when she died. luminous experience. 

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Fr. Tom Lucas sj