Read andreflect, consider, revisit, returnreflectconsiderrevisitreturn

Bodies do not last forever. The fact is simple enough; the explanations we place around it can be much less so.

Recognizing mortality does not require denying the medical causes of a particular death. Illness and injury can be understood and treated, even though care cannot make a body immortal.

Mortality also does not settle what consciousness is or whether anything survives bodily death. People approach those questions through different kinds of inquiry and belief. We need not resolve them in order to face the limits of a human life.

Aging changes the body, and control is partial. Knowing that can change our priorities without providing a theory of the afterlife. We can care for the body seriously while admitting what care cannot guarantee.