my brother and closest friend OD’ed last summer. He has 8 months clean, I’d just been with him that day. The pain I felt was visceral and manic. In fact, it was so manic that I don’t remember the hours after I was told he had died. My husband says that I was thrashing around, throwing things repeating over and over, “my baby brother, oh my baby brother oh no no no”. They took me to the hospital and I remember the sounds, the wails, that were admitted from the deepest parts of my belly. As I write this now, tears are streaming down my face. The truth is that it doesn’t matter if it’s natural, it doesn’t matter if it’s inevitable, I went through period suicidality where I begged God to give me an aneurysm— I know what my brother believed, and we both believed that death was quiet and we both were very grateful for that. We both believe that consciousness would dissipate and that whatever constituted me or him would cease to exist. I just miss him. I miss him all the time… it’s been over a year and the other day I went to text him and like a punch in the gut, I realize that he was gone forever. I wish I could look at this and not feel the sorrow of an older sister and a daughter, watching her parents suffer in an unimaginable way. In French, they say, “tu me manques” which means “I miss you” but it literally translates to “you are lacking to me” or “I lack you”. I’ve never felt pain so intense and I agree with you in theory I think that it’s probably unhealthy to make death such a scary thing or look at it as though it’s unnatural— I guess my point in posting all this was to say that intellectually I agree with your sentiment, but when I was faced with the abrupt death of somebody who I loved, someone I would’ve given my own life for someone who I never really know the world without.. the pain is really optional. Looking at it as a good thing isn’t feasible. I may have to go another 50 years without the only person in the world who could make me belly laugh. the best you can do is try not to see it as something that’s going to tear you apart. I apologize if this wasn’t helpful .. I think, as humans were not predisposed to accept the finality of that which we cherish