There once was a woman named [AR's mom's name]. Her mother was more than slightly nuts. When [AR's mom's name] was 13, her mother moved away. She was left alone in a house without electricity. She sold tomato plants to get money, and did her homework at night by a streetlight outside her bedroom window. She later married a man named [AR's dad's name]. She was pregnant her senior year in high school, and gave birth a little over a month after she graduated. They named the baby [AR's name]. [AR] was obviously a very loved little girl. Her mother took lots of pictures of her, and recorded all her milestones in the back of a baby photo album. [AR's mom's name] referred to [AR] as her "sweetie-pie angel-puss". [AR] liked to sneak into the big bed and crawl in between her mommy and daddy. One day, [AR] found out that she was going to have a little brother or sister. Her mommy's tummy got big. Then, her mommy disappeared. [AR's mom's name] had gone into labor. She gave birth to a baby boy, and they named him [AR's brother]. But [AR's mom's name] did not come home. [AR] went to stay with her paternal grandparents for a long time (30 days). [AR's mom's name] was hospitalized in a psychiatric ward for severe postpardum depression. At one point, she escaped. [AR's dad's name] found her along a river in the city, slitting her wrists with broken glass. She was rehospitalized. [AR] got to visit her mommy a few times. Finally, [AR's mom's name] came home. Just days later, [AR] was confused when her mommy hugged her and told her good-bye. Her mommy walked outside the house and shut the door behind her. [AR] was stuck inside the house, when she really wanted to follow her mommy. [AR] looked out the screen door at her mommy in confusion. [AR] heard a very loud crack, and her mommy fell down! [AR] kicked and kicked at the aluminum bottom of the screen door, but it would not budge. She could not reach the handle. The next thing that [AR] remembers is her Pap-pap being there. The paramedics show up, pick her mommy up, and put her on the couch. They seem to pound on her mommy's chest and, for some reason, blow in her mouth. Mommy won't move. Someone says, "Get [AR] out of here," and someone very big picks [AR] up, up, up, and she moves further and further from her mommy. By this time, [AR] is crying and wailing for her mommy, but the big person won't listen. The next thing that [AR] remembers is being at a big house with a big room filled with flowers. Her mommy is laying in a casket, and she still won't move. [AR] is in the arms of her Daddy. She reaches for her mommy's hand, but it doesn't squeeze back. This is when [AR] realizes her mommy is broken and won't be coming back. This third-person narrative is based upon real life events. Hope it doesn't depress you too much. It may help you understand why I never answer questions about my life story on the public internet. The answer to your question is the final line of the sixth paragraph. ==================================== Support the return of the avatar: http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/111472

When I was about 8, my mom came home in tears and said that we had to pack a few things and drive to West Virginia right away. Where is West Virginia? Oh, THAT place. Her brother had finally reached his limit and decided to shoot himself in the chest. He was an ammo truck driver in Vietnam and just couldn't face the demons he brought back with him anymore. I saw how devestated my mom was, I saw how devestated his children were (they were about my age), and I saw a full fledged funeral for the first time (open casket too). I still remember what it was like. Faded and fake flowers, the cheap brown suit he was dressed in, how anguished his face still looked despite the best efforts of the mortician to make him look peaceful. It was truly sad, but I did come away with more than a vague undeerstanding of not just the concept of death, but death itself.

I'm still working on it. It's a bit of a phobia of mine. Mostly because I don't know for sure what to expect after.

In the police academy in 1990 in our death investiagtion classes.

In the police academy in 1990 in our death investiagtion classes.

I think you have to encounter a corpse, typically that of a family member. The feel of that cold, lifeless hand in yours that you remember being strong and warm makes the reality of death undeniable. That's when I got the message.

When my dog of 13 years died, I would have given ten years of my own life to keep her here. It was then I suddenly realised that it was final. God I miss my Molly.

Really recently. Im 23 and I always thought I was indestructable. I was at a party with a bunch of my friends two summers ago, and we were outside drinking in the parking lot of our apartment. A drunk driver rooled through, hit 6 cars and 3 people including me. I only suffered a concussion and a torn pectoral muscle, but one of the guys that I grew up with was killed. It was the most earth moving event of my life. Thats when I realized that I nor anyone else was indestructable.

In high school on a nice Friday evening watching my chums playing a district football game. A friend of mine played fullback. He was in the middle of a play, when he dropped the ball on the field. The crowd started booing him, then he grabbed himself around the chest and crumpled to the ground. The medics put him on a stretcher, but apparently he had already died...he was DOA at the hospital. The concept became very solid for all of us friends and spectators that night!

after watching people falling out of buildings on 9/11 was way to much for me.

Actually I think I didn't realize death yet, but the problem is to face the own death in the future. I think I realized that I was going to die sooner or later when I read something about Low-Cost Airline Carriers being blamed for CO2 pollution and greenhouse effect, and that is really weird.

I think when I was a kid and my next door neighbor died.

a coupe months ago,i'm 16 right now, but for some reason I think about death alot, and I know it sucks, but when I'm dead I won't care anyways.

My uncle Richard died last year (like every decent member of my family does) After 7 years of living like a vegetable (he had a brain hemirage), he copped it. I mean, he drank like no tomorrow and smoked pot, did cocaine etc. all his life, he was a medical miracle to of lasted that long. But it really hit me when my evil cousin Izzy looked at me (we hated each other) and just collapsed in tears, and said 'Daddie's not coming back again. I lost him.' That killed me a little inside, and made me value how important he was to her. But it really hit me, that she would never see him again

About 4 years ago, when my great grandmother died. I really did love that woman, she was'nt like the typical grandma, she spent the last 5 years of her life bedridden, and yet still acted like a 15 year old, I remember getting a call when she died, just slipped off in her sleep, she did, we were in Texas by then, so we could'nt fly up for her funeral, but at that moment when I heard my aunt Nelleen's voice coming through the phone, it just hit he me, "She's dead, I'll never see her again, I'll never talk to her again, she'll never eat again, or have one last ciggarette, or say even one final word, she's dead, she's gone, that's it." That was about when my chronic cynisism and depression set in for good.

When I was 14 and my great-grandfather died. I'd had others in my life pass, but I had a special connection with him and it's also one that I immediately realized that no one else in this world would be able to replace.

I still haven't is that weird! i probably never will!

When most of my grandparents passed on, I was very young. I knew that they were dead and I would never see them again, but I didn't fully grasp the concept. Over the last few years, there have been numerous deaths around me. I've finally started to really "get" death. My last remaining grandparent passed away last summer at the age of 90. She died right before her birthday. Then I started realizing that my father was due to turn 65 in 2006...and while that is not old by any stretch of the imagination, it is a milestone age-wise. In my eyes, my dad is starting up the path to go knockin' on Heaven's door. He is mortal, and the realization that my parents will someday die, has helped me understand the permanence of death.

When some dude pulled a gun on me outside of a bar.

Although I had seen dead members of my family The true reality did not hit me until we went to identify the body of my son, such a young strong healthy and happy child destroyed and unmoving for the first time ever . It was his stillness that brought home to me that he was really gone. My latest death has not yet sunk in because I am still dealing with the practicalities of the situation. After the funeral I will start to deal with that loss and silence. The practicalities help, you cannot get emotional while things need doing and it is the last thing you can do for the person who has gone

I always knew I was mortal since I was five and placed in an oxygen tent. I saw animals die; but didn't see any people until I was in my twenties. After finding two bodies, calling the coroner, ambulance, and police, being a pall bearer, attending several funerals, and seeing freinds consumed by terminal illness I'd say I have a fairly solid concept of death.

I thought around my mid-20s that I had it down, but then I married and my husband passed away within a year, so I questioned what I had previously believed. I still struggle with it, in fact...

At 4 years old when my mother had to explain that the twin boys I knew she was having had died at birth and would never come home.

last night when my best friend died in a car crash

Very early in life...the childhood nighttime prayer "If I should die before I wake, I pray thee Lord my soul to take"...I had questions even then.

when i gave birth to my son they put him on me and i ask the doctor to please take him from me.and then my heart stops i didnt see a light but when i woke up i new my heart stop and all i could think of was my father.he die years before that day.from that day on i new what death was.

Age 5 when I saw my pet dog get run over.

After reading in a medical journal the stages of brain death. When they talked about the breakdown of cognitive functions and consciousness. It hit me that mass of cells is where all of our emotions, perceptions, feeling, memories and personal identity was stored. When these cells die, you die. Further evidence of this to me was people that had suffered brain damage. They had suffered so much trauma in their brains that they has basically lost all sense of who they were previously. Evidence that all of who you are is contained in your brain, not some meta-physical consciousness. Pretty much killed my juvenile beliefs in the soul and afterlife and all that.

I formed a concept of death at a very early age. It was all around me, TV, books, magazines, and the chicken market. That was where you pick a chicken, the man takes it out of its smelly cage, slits its throat and you were expected to eat it when it was cooked. And people ask me why I’m a vegetarian.