You can’t tell by looking at me I have been dealing with death my entire life.

Generally, when people look at me, often they can not guess my profession. I confess I have a weird enjoyment about having people inquire what “I do” for a living. I get pleasure from hearing, “you look so young & you do not look like an undertaker.” That response fills my spirit up every time I reveal my profession. Yes, I am a mortician. I take pride in the idea that I can move inconspicuously without anyone knowing I am a mortician. I learned it, earned it, and continue to master it, including not showing the overwhelming emotion of the transition from life to death.

I am a self-diagnosed empath. I feel what people feel, especially in a heightened state. When I was younger while being groomed for my future profession, I sometimes would cry during a private viewing (the time the family sees their loved one before the public views) or at the funeral service. My grandmother (the great Mrs. Lula Jenkins), who managed my grandfather’s (the equally as great Mr. Joseph B. Jenkins, Jr.) funeral home in Landover, MD at the time, had to explain my role as a future mortician. She said in so many words that “it was the family’s time to mourn, and I should remain as professional as possible to give them the space they needed to grieve.”As a teenager, I learned how to master the art of professionally or empathetically, allowing the space for grief. I only occasionally faltered for the death of children, widows who had great love stories (I am a hopeless romantic), and of course, my own family. I learned to protect the “grief space” and became a well trained emotional soldier ….or so I thought.In recent years, I have begun to grieve for men & women I have never encountered. I mourn those who have unjustly suffered at the hands of violence from a system they and their families employee. I read I hear, and I weep. I think about it, and I get paralyzed with fear, anger, and sorrow. For my mental health, and to help me continue to practice a version of an often unacknowledged mental health therapy, I try my best to avoid the news.

Some “nosy” people may ask me how someone died? My rehearsed answer is to say “death.” For the record, it’s none of anyone’s business. However, I also see the rationale behind the question. Humans are always trying to avoid death. For survival, we have to know what we are fighting. An example was in the 1980s and 1990s it was AIDS as the monster. As a kid, I would hear the ignorant answer of “I’m good because I am not gay” as if homosexuality was a reason for contracting a deadly disease (it wasn’t and still isn’t)—but what did I know as a kid? We are currently doing it with COVID-19. We all are trying to rationalize how not to die.

BUT….

How has death been granted access to ending lives without a justifiable offense worthy of death?How did death gain access to people happily living at home, a child’s exploration of imagination by playing with a toy gun, driving and getting stopped for a minor traffic violation, walking, jogging, or merely breathing?My mental faculties are overloading with the autopsy of the recent events in America. How do you avoid death here? Unfortunately, I can only find one common thread in the casualties from the list above.I want to live in a world that acknowledges and believes that “All Lives Matter”. However, does that mean we don’t concede black people’s bloodstain dripping from deaths’ scythe? To those who are trying to scream “All Lives Matter” louder than the moans and wailing of the families left behind and over the 8 mins 46 secs it takes to have your last breath, ask yourself is that statement correct? When you sit down and have an honest conversation with yourself and this mortician, the truth is visceral and paralyzing. Ask Jacob Blake.