Reflections on life and death

Modern medicine has somehow made us all think of death as being, in some way, a failure to survive, rather than an inevitable reality, writes the author

As 2017 draws to a close, social media is beginning to recap the year — and people — gone by. As I read about Shashi Kapoor, Tom Alter, Glen Campbell, Hugh Hefner and others who passed away this year, I am struck by how medical our reporting (and understanding) of death has become. It is almost as if it weren’t for cardiac arrest, cancer, or stroke, people would not die at all. Modern medicine has somehow made us all think of death as being, in some way, a failure to survive, rather than an inevitable reality. So amid reports of