Normally, I don't do deathfics. I am, after all, the girl who threw a huge fit when forced to read Black Beauty for school. As with almost anything else in life, though, there are exceptions to my rules. And the exception with deathfics, for me, is that they not only be well-written but that they have a purpose.

The suffering on the way to death that some people have to endure is heart-breaking and the pain they leave behind with those who love them is truly tragic. Death itself doesn't particularly scare me, though. Nor does it make me feel hopeless. Life is a journey that culminates in death. But as I don't believe life ends there, I can even find death to be a blessing under the right circumstances.

I don't think it can be chalked up to being young and innocent, per se. I'm not going to take offense at that stereotype, because I'm sure it wasn't written for that purpose. Possibly the difference is due to personality. I may be young, but I'm not sure I'm particularly innocent. While I won't claim my life has been the equivalent to the sufferings faced by, say, someone my age who grew up in the Projects, I've lost several people dear to me.

So, a story to illustrate my point seems fitting (since we're all about stories here): When I was a kid, I lived in Kenya for several years; sometimes my dad would take me with him to visit people he was taking care of. We'd go to their shacks, and I saw little children dying from everything from malnutrition to HIV. I would hold their hands while he examined them and watch their bodies waste away to nothing over the weeks until they died. It was horrible and sad, but I'm really glad he took me anyway. It made me realise that injustice does exist, that people who are just as good as I am are dying every day, and that I not only need to be grateful for my own life, but I have a responsibility to try my best to help those who can't fight for themselves. Death isn't pretty, but at least in my case it's a lesson that has stuck with me my whole life.

That's the same way I view deathfics. Gratuitous death does nothing for me. Something like Catherine's story (sorry to pick on yours, but it's the one foremost in my mind smile ), reminds me of how flawed the justice system is and how that can lead to tragedy. Stories don't let you forget. Stories memorialise the best and worst of mankind. After all, it's thanks to the works of people such as Elie Wiesel that I, still unborn when it happened, know about the Holocaust in a real and intimate way that only someone who lived through it can impart. Hopefully that memory makes me more aware to the possibility of that happening in my own day and age. Stories do that.

For that reason I love them. And I hate them. But they're necessary for someone like me. Even the painful ones. And I venture to think that I'll probably feel the same when I'm old and worn-out by life.

**~~**

Swoosh --->