fragile

she was an old woman. someone who had probably lived a very full life, and had been well cared for. she was quite obese, with a history of various cardiac and vascular disease related issues.

The probable cause of death was MI, a 'heart-attack'. She fell at home about 2 weeks after having a stroke, and then had died in the ER.

Deeply, and without hesitation, he just sliced through the skin around her breasts, down the middle, then across her hips. Peeling back mounds of skin and fat exposed her chest bones and muscles. "She's had some open heart surgery" as was evidenced by the steel sutures in her sternum. Then he brought out these ...snippers.., and starting at the bottom of her ribs, cut out a square through to her collarbones, an entry into the cavity of her body. The organs were all laid out still in the sacs of connective tissue and surrounding fat, but now accessible.

He took the heart out first. A large gush of blood streaming from where the aorta had been clipped. Somehow this fluid filling the space in her chest seemed to possess some kind of vital energy, like the life-force, or the spark or whatever it is, that keeps us whole and alive. If was if it had simply retreated into this inner space to condense. We examined the vessels, then the lungs, which were blackened- a result of living a full life in an industrialized country-. Each organ was removed, stripped out of it's fatty casing and weighed. -Spleen, Pancreas, Kidneys, Uterus. The pathologist took a sample piece from each one in a place he thought would give some sign or a true diagnosis upon microscope examination. Determining The Cause of Death, and then he threw the remainder into a bucket.

When the bone saw came out and it was time to take out the brain, we all had to leave the room, including the pathologist. The reason we all gave was that we didn't want to inhale the bone-dust. Right. I wondered how the tech who was doing the sawing felt in there. Alone and sawing open an old womans skull. I am generally quite empathetic, but I had great difficulting with this stretch of emotional imagination.

When we re-entered the chamber, and the scalp was peeled back from the head, covering her face, it was such a relief. Not having to look at her facial features removed much of the tension from the experience. We were able to hold the brain, a three pound, infinitely complex, ball of fat. Networks of thought encapuslated in membranes and holding the inaccessible thing that was, only 24 hours previously, the solid segment of this womans personality.

This is just description, so much of what I think I learned is still liminal. So many of my questions right now existentially silly. but thats where I'm at with my recent experience. I feel very fortunate, and very fragile.