Leading up to the first day of the Cadaver lab, I imagined details of the life of my cadaver. How many children does she have? Who is her favorite grandchild? What kind of jokes made her laugh? I wanted her humanity to be set before me so that I may not, for a single moment, forget that this is a real human. We walked into the lab and there were some twelve odd metal tables on each side of the room. On each table, there lay a body entirely zipped in a white body bag. The group behind me unzipped their bag first and a gasp escaped me. I was unexpectedly hit with a storm of emotion. I was shaky and held back tears. I noticed silence in the room as every student stood in a self-granted moment of silence absorbing the shock of a sight so ghastly that one must take a moment to remind ourselves of what we’re doing here and more importantly, why we’re doing it. As my classmates got ready to begin the dissection, my emotional overwhelm was only getting worse – my breaths were shortening, my hands were shaking, and my eyes clouded with tears. So I tapped Dr. Titunick on her shoulder and she immediately left what she was doing, put her hand around my waist, and walked me outside. The moment we stepped outside the lab, I was sobbing. I did not expect to be this severely overwhelmed with emotion. As my breaths slowed down enough to talk, we chatted about our experiences with death and dying. We talked about how, as future doctors, we will get to care for these donors’ children and grandchildren and give back to them that way. We talked about how no matter what after-death religious beliefs anyone holds, it is undeniable that there was once something in this vessel that no longer is. There were so many bodies. So many people. So many lives. All the emotions they’ve experienced. The wins, the losses, the draws. They experienced moments they never thought they’d get past. They’ve lost people who were a part of who they were. I hope they experienced genuine love and care. I hope they were able to genuinely love and care. I hope their family still thinks of them and carries the best version of them around.
As I held my donor’s wet, cold, and colorless hand, I hoped someone had held it when she was dying. I looked into her lifeless eyes and hoped the eyes that she last met were those of a loved one. I’m intimately touched by the fabric of human life. The divine in the human, is threaded intricately as to remain unspotted by the naked eye and only hinted at by a story, a symbol, or a feeling. It is seen with the mind’s eye and experienced in the deepest parts of ourselves. It is where we go when we sleep. It is where we go when we die. It is where the light is.
