life.

"It's stunning isn't?"
"what"
"just how much respect we give to death"
"hmmm"
"we are so willing to take time out of our lives, to honour the dead. Death can just consume so much of our time, and we really don't ever question it; but the interesting question is really how come we didn't make this time when they were living?"
"huh"
"no one ever questions asking for time off for a funeral, or just to honour the dead; that's a given" "but we really don't have that same time, respect, or priority for life." "isn't that right?"
"I guess so"
"it's just a cultural standard of relative priorities - we have chosen to take life as an expendable, infinite right, and death - wow, death is this thing that we get all up in arms about, shocked and saddened at the thought that somehow this life could end - but what were we doing with it anyways" "And then it takes a death to realize how quickly our agenda can be cleared, how everything becomes droppable, expendable, once someone dies" "and yet we never make that a priority when they are alive"
"yup"