Bodies.

I think I can say now with certainty that death is different once you’ve created life.

Somehow, unfortunately, I’ve been to two funerals since Koala was born. One was just a few months after, a year ago; the funeral of a 12-year-old girl. The second was tonight, the funeral of a middle-aged mom.

Bodies. When they are formed, bodies take up space in other bodies. When they are born, new bodies encompass all the life of any other body. They contain the code for continued living. They are the most valuable thing a person has. They are the only thing. They are people.

Until the life of a body is taken away. I can’t help but think, as I watch a burial, that with removing something as invisible as breath, you can make a person into a body. A lifeless encasement that’s been emptied of its contents which made it invaluable.

It doesn’t matter what you believe happens after. Whatever religion tells you, it doesn’t matter at a burial. A person after death – all we know for sure at that moment is that there is a body.

The biggest fear I live with these days, since creating a living body, is the thought that someone I love might end up a lifeless one.