At the same time, we fear death. Not always in a way that’s at the forefront of our minds, but in a way that’s on the back burner, through avoidance. We don’t like to talk about it, linger on it, or let it interfere too much with the way we organize our lives. We know, abstractly, that we will die, but we treat that awareness as something to be acknowledged briefly and then set aside (if and when possible), so it doesn’t destabilize the structures we rely on to keep going. We avoid “D” words like death, dying, and dead in favor of more palatable substitutes like “passed away” and “in a better place.”