Even at such a young age, I’d developed a sense for the appropriate kinds of euphemisms for death — and I knew that sharing them would bring comfort to my mom. But that didn’t change the fact that my grandmother was dead — like, she was dead and buried and there weren’t any daisies in there with her, though I didn't quite comprehend that yet.

It was actually much later, when I was 17 and attending another relative’s funeral, that the reality of death truly hit me. My uncle had died after being diagnosed with cancer way too late, and his passing was a real shock to the family. The memorial service was at his house in Virginia and the choir from his church sang some upbeat hymn about going where you were always meant to go. Listening to that, and knowing how he died, I thought, This must be a joke.

I bristled at the idea that dead people were anything other than dead. On one hand, I found it naive to think about death in such rosy terms, inwardly rolling my eyes at those who did. On the other, I believed that death was supposed to be frightening, and by rejecting the idea of an afterlife or deliverance I all but cemented that fear in my mind.