The other day I watched a television show in which the commentator said we learn about living by observing and learning from dying.  The speaker referenced the cave man days and how important it was to watch and learn from death.  Humans learned what was safe to eat, what injuries meant and how to fix them and so on.  Basically, he said that our life expectancies grew because we watched and remained attentive to death over the years.

I believe the speaker's premise:  the quantity of our years has increased thanks to knowledge gleaned by watching death.  I also believe the quality of our years can increase by observing, too.  Unfortunatley, our society has taken extreme steps over the decades to separate the experiences and connections of the living from the dying.  Witness the facilities, the processes and the interactions with those in their final years or months:  separation, as if to "protect" the healthier.

Years ago, I took Communion to a woman at a nursing home once a week.  During the time that I was able to help, I saw her 30 times, perhaps.  In less than a year, I then saw her 20-30 times more than her children, who also lived in Houston, did.  How can that "parting of the ways" serve anyone when the "way" actually involves how we live, how we die and, ultimately, how we heal...together.