Death and it's trappings

While I've been up here in Chesley, I've had to go to various nursing homes to declare some deaths. This isn't a particularly new experience for me. However, I've always felt a little bit silly when I've gotten the call. What on earth do you say, as a complete stranger, to a family who has just lost a loved one, especially as a stranger who's there to "make sure" their loved one is really dead? How silly do I look when I call their name, expecting them not to answer? Or when I shine a light into their eyes, not expecting a squint or a response? Or when I listen to their chests, not expecting to hear a heartbeat?

That, I think, is the one thing that always still profoundly affects me every single time. When you listen to a living, breathing chest, you can hear the air circulating amongst the millions of alveoli, can hear the litres of blood pumping through the heart, every murmur, every bruit, every crackle, every wheeze. It sounds -alive- and vibrantly so.....

But the deadness of the silence of a heart that is stilled.... it's an echo that reverberates through your stethoscope that just goes on and on in the deepness of silence.... I think I get a small chill every time I hear that... I think it's the finality of that silence that always jars me for a bit.... For a small moment, it reminds me again of how small and narrow the line between life and death truly is...

The moment passes... I put back on my professional veneer and express my condolences to the family, and leave them to grieve and mourn their loved one's mortality, while I go to ponder my own...