Before and after death

Warning: if the pain of losing a loved one is still raw, you may not want to click on the link.

Dooce posted a link to a feature on the web site of the Guardian newspaper, a series of photos of people taken before and after their deaths. These are all people who learned they had terminal illnesses. The range in the photos is striking - some look no different after death; merely asleep. Others look considerably older, or more at peace. Most unexpected, at least to me, was how few of the post mortem photos show people made gaunt by the disease that killed them.

How amazing that these people were willing to be photographed and to be interviewed for their views on life, however edited, to be preserved. Requiescant in pace.