I met Ki's grandmother on her deathbed.

I was disappointed to think that it would have been the only time I'd met this woman. Everyone who knew her had something nice to say about her; from what I'd always heard she was a truly remarkable human being and it saddened me that I just never had the time or the opportunity to meet her before she became so sick.

She was laying still, in the bed she would eventually die in. She was alive, awake, though hardly functioning. I knew when I looked in her eyes (though several feet away, as the family had a vain hope that she'd make it out alive and didn't want anyone to go germing her up or anything) that her soul, her actual human spirit, her life force was right beneath. It was practically on the surface of her skin.

She couldn't speak much above a whisper. Her son (Ki's father) smoothed her hair down, held her hand and listened very closely to what she was saying (he had to lean in with his ear close to her face). I tried to remain emotionless. I really tried to just put on a face, even though I knew she'd never make it out. Somehow I knew, deep down, that I was looking into the eyes of a dying woman.

Tears stung my eyes. I pretended to adjust my glasses and used my sleeve to gently brush away what I couldn't manage to contain. I smiled. I felt such an immense sadness for someone I hadn't met before, sadness for the people who loved her. Sadness for the son who would be left to take care of his father (who is suffering from severe dementia) after his only caretaker would be gone. We were there for all of but ten minutes.

Less than a week later she opted for doctor-assisted death with dignity. Within a day the medicine put her to rest.

A week or two later we went to her funeral. I'd never really seen a corpse up close before. She was striking. She looked so beautiful. She looked much better dead than she did in the hospital. I suddenly realized that all the pain had stopped; her heart was no longer beating, her mind was no longer able to enable her body to feel anything at all. She was at peace. She really did look magnificent. Almost like a porcelain doll.

It was only then that I considered the possibility of the human soul, only contained within the confines of tissue and bones until the final breath is exhaled. Where does it go?

And that's what blew my mind.