We're ticking down. 12 days, barely packed, but I am ready. Ready-ish at least.
Reading over this journal post stirred up a lot of memories for me. It is no secret that I am fascinated with death. For a long time, and still, I wanted to be a medical examiner. There is something about that position, in particular, that is incredibly important to me.
Death is such a difficult subject to grasp. Scary, unknown. For some reason, studying it brings me a lot of peace. So, last summer when we unearthed three deceased children from Old Kiyyangan, all of my aspirations were reaffirmed and the work we were doing seemed even more meaningful to me.
06-16-13
I don't know how to accurately describe the last two days. For one, one of my biggest dreams came true. Albeit a morbid dream, but one none the less, we found a dead person. In fact, we found 3 dead people. Buried together for at least 500 years. Probably under the age of five. I found three dead kids. Once I step back and digest this find, I can't believe that just happened.
Our resident physical Anthropologist spent two days removing the trio from our trench. I was so fascinated. When everything was finally dug up we had to carry up the two skulls (we never found the third complete skull). I offered to carry up the most complete skull.
You have to understand how steep and awful the stairs we climb up and down each day are. Uneven. They hurt, but when I had that skull in my arms, nothing else mattered. I felt so small. So insignificant. I was carrying a dead child. In that moment, all I wanted was a kid of my own. A kid to love and raise. A kid to take care of and make sure what I was carrying away from Trench 8 would never happen to. While clutching the remains of this child, nothing else in the world seemed more important than getting him or her's remains safely back to camp. It was a moment unlike any other in the world.
<3 always
Cooper
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