I recently attended a funeral—although I was probably the only person there who would have called it that. The invitation described it instead as a celebration of life, a phrase that came with instructions I didn’t quite know what to do with: wear bright colors, come hungry for the food that would be pro- vided, approach death in a way unfamiliar to me. I don’t come from a “celebration of life” family. We treat dying the way we treat living: tightly, carefully, as if anything outside of
by WILLIAM PEREZ image by THOMAS T. HAMMOND
Winter 2026
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