My phone rang one day with a familiar voice on the other line.  An older friend of mine told me her sister's husband had dropped at work and it didn't look good.  I went over to the hospital beating most of the family to the waiting room.  We were told to go to a special waiting room that was secluded from everyone else.  I met the wife and we talked briefly.  She was worried about her husband.

The doctor walked in and told us her husband had passed away.  The family just gasped at the news.  We were all in collective shock.  He was in his early 70s but was actively working and showed no sign of any real physical problems except the normal surgeries and procedures a man of his age would encounter.

They asked her if she wanted to go in and see the body.  She told the doctor that she would like to go and one of her children came with her.  She asked me if I would come too.  I was uncomfortable with the idea but tried not to express the discomfort of seeing a real live dead person who had just died moments earlier.

We walked in together.  There was a strange smell in the room that I have come to associate with hospitals and dead people.  I am not sure to this day what causes the smell.  We walked up together.  The wife just cried and held his body.  He still had a sign of blood to the back of his head where he had fallen.  He laid there with a sheet draped over him.  His son tried to comfort his mother.  I wasn't much comfort only trying to appear as if it felt natural to be there in the room.

I did not want to touch the man but in a situation like that you stand out if you don't touch him.  So I took a hold of his hand and shared in their grief.  The hand didn't feel any different than a regular hand.  I was thankful to leave the room when she was ready to leave.

That first experience gave me what I needed to be more comfortable around death.  I can now see it as a natural process.  I can now be more at ease in comforting the family as they are going through that moment.