Smell of Death

I don’t care what anyone says, death stinks. In my life time I have been present at the deaths of many people. Some deaths were caused by warfare, others related to accidents, many to aging, disease and others due to suicide or homicide. Death really stinks. No, not because we loose a loved one, but there is a specific odor that accompanies death.

Not everyone can smell the odor of death. I guess I am a person who is very sensitive to the odor. When I lived in New York City for three months in 2002, I made my way through the streets towards Ground Zero. A sick feeling came over me as I smelt that odor once more and I ask the guy I went with, “Do you smell that”? His response was, “Well, I didn’t do it”! “No, Mark, do you smell death?

He looked at me as I was one brick shy a load and ignored my question. Then, I heard a man behind me say, “I smell it”. I turned and it was another person visiting Ground Zero. He was from Oklahoma. “I don’t think everyone can sense it,” he said. “Does it bother you like it does me?

“It always has,” I exclaimed. We talked a while. Mark listened in, but I don’t think he understood. There is a unique presence of odor when a person or persons die. I am not talking about the usual body odors or smells associated with embalming, or a decaying body, or a diseased body, but a specific odor all its’ own.

If you can or can’t smell death, please comment? Could you ask your friends and neighbors this death question? Ask them to come on line and comment. I am curious to know if this is ability to smell death is more prevalent than I think.  Can you smell death?

This entry was posted on June 21, 2008 at 11:31 am and is filed under Smell of Death. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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