I saw my first dead body when I was four. Her name was Helen. She was lying in our suburban driveway one evening when our little Suzuki returned.

My dad was a GP and Helen, our neighbour, a severe asthmatic. I used to wave to her when she was pruning the roses, her face ablaze with a warm, bright smile. It was a Sunday night, which in our family – unbeknownst to Helen – was takeaway food night. We’d probably been gone no longer than twenty minutes when she’d called by for help. Her body lay motionless in the driveway as the car pulled in; the smell of roast chicken, hot chips and gravy filling the hatchback. Even then, the finality of it all clawed its way through my stomach, the golden shards of deep-fried potato swiftly losing appeal as my hunger dissipated.

Although death occurs consistently throughout time and is universal, the way it is perceived and experienced are not. Context is everything. I’m writing this reflection about death on stolen Aboriginal land, from an apartment built on soil and surrounded by waterways haunted by ghosts of the nation’s settler-colonial past. Its legacies evident – not only in the systemic racism and ongoing dispossession – but in the shorter life expectancies of First Nations people. Lives which are extinguished too soon and often in entirely preventable ways.

As I’ve gotten older, my feelings about death have evolved to mirror the lens I have on life. They are informed by lived experiences, my moral compass and faith. Right now, as I care for my mother living with metastatic cancer during a time of live-streamed genocide, I find........

© Pearls and Irritations