If you know me you may know that I have my own opinions about birth. I get frustrated when our culture views it as some freaky, horrible, disgusting thing when it is actually very beautiful. I attribute my openness in part to be raised by a mother that has always had a very open and optimistic dialogue about childbirth. What may come as even more of a surprise is my mother’s openness to talking about death. I know it isn’t an easy topic to just toss around over dinner, and unlike birth it is a time of mourning. I do believe though that having healthy relationship with the reality of our immortality is a positive attribute. This thought occurred to me on memorial day when a couple different conversations transpired. The first was about birth order. I explained how I was the middle child for half of my upbringing, but I’ve been the youngest since my little brother passed away when I was nine. Later that night I was discussing with another friend about how we lost our insurance, and how this was a concern for me coming from a family with a brother that died of Leukemia. There it was again, I was just talking about my life and it naturally included a death within my family. This doesn’t always come up, but to not be able to talk about it would be disheartening. When I reflected on these conversations later I was grateful to have friends who could listen and felt comfortable with the topic. Sometimes it may just be a lightweight tidbit of information, other times I may want to go deeper with my feelings about loosing a loved one, but either way I know that I can talk about it with them. That is why I decide this week I want to share, for the first time, my story about loosing a brother to a terminal illness. I know there will be some tears, but I’m sure we’ve all been effected by death in someway and I hope that this topic can maybe act as a platform for honoring and remembering those that have gone before us.