Death and Life

     This past week, we read a few poems by Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. I thought I knew all there is to know about death, but these poems have opened my eyes to what death really teaches us about life.
     In Dickinson's poem, "Because I could not stop for Death", death is personified as a polite and kind carriage driver. This is unusual because most people would never think of losing someone they love to death in a positive way, but what Dickinson is expressing in this poem is that death is, although an ending to a life, the start to peaceful immortality. Another one of Dickinson's poems from a different point in her life, "My life closed twice before its close", shows her more negative view of death. This poem is about how she felt as if she died inside twice because of losing loved ones to death. It teaches that death really causes more pain for the ones who remain alive than it could ever cause for the one who died. In "Success is Counted Sweetest", it doesn't seem like it's about death, but it can relate to a lesson that death teaches. This poem is about how you don't know what success is unless you've never had it. This reminds me of the idea that you don't know what you have until it's gone, which teaches us the importance of making that most of the time we have on this earth. In Whitman's "Song of Myself", he discusses how death is natural and leads you back to where you came from, which is nature. It teaches us to accept that fact that death will occur and to enjoy life while we can, instead of worrying about dying.
     I have never looked at death so carefully as I have reading these poems. I understand and accept death more, both in a positive way. In short, death teaches us that there is eternal life in immortality, it is more painful living through others' deaths than actually dying, it is important to live life to its fullest, and it is even more important to enjoy life while you can.