By Michael J. Herman ©2026 All Rights Reserved
I know the tart, acrid, disgusting stench of death all too well.
It heralds the approach of the end of life. It beckons. It teases. It calls. It shouts and demands, It tugs, pulls, pushes, and thrusts itself unwantingly into places it has no business being. This one’s mine, as it tugs and pulls its victim away.
Strong and insistent or weak and failing, the nose knows. And so far, there has been no room for argument.
Sometimes the smell is sweet and powdery. More often, it is sour and sickly, carrying with it the unmistakable sense that something inside the body is shutting down—that organs are failing, or blood is no longer reaching the vital places it needs to reach.
At first, I thought it was simply the scent of old age. But not every old person carries it.
Then I thought perhaps it was the room. Their clothes. Their diet. Their medication. The hospital. The care facility. Their soap.
Until.
Until the tenth person was dying, and the same offensive smell was there.
At first, it was subtle. Almost undetectable. So faint that I am certain the average nose would never notice it. And even if someone did, they would probably dismiss it as just another part of the dying process.
And, in fact, that is exactly the point. It’s a major part of the dying process. Only few ever notice it for what it is.
Part of the dying process.
Just as no two people live their lives in exactly the same way, no two people die in exactly the same way. Yet there are similarities—things you begin to recognize when you have seen them often enough.
The acrid stench of death is one of them.
It is common, and yet almost universally unnoticed.
It enters the room quietly, sometimes barely perceptible, signaling that life is beginning its closing salvo. It arrives as the body is shutting down. It may not even appear until life has already evaporated from its vessel.
I don’t know exactly what it is.
I only know that after encountering it again and again, I have learned to recognize it.
People often say, “I know it when I see it.”
I have come to believe that the phrase can be expanded:
“I know it when I smell it.”
Death may become her, but death becomes us all.