The room was both a morgue and a classroom. At the beginning of anatomy, I had a hard time separating the idea of a morgue from my mind whenever I entered the room. The cadavers were not yet classroom learning tools, but only dead bodies. This caused me to view my own body in a different light. In a way, I was repulsed. I looked at my naked body in the shower and thought of hers. Admittedly, her aged lifeless body did not hold a close resemblance to my own, but I couldn't help but think that the life-giving blood that coursed through my vessels would be transient and some day stop; and I would become like her. In the first few days and nights of class, I had many thoughts about the cadaver. She would accompany me to sleep.

—Hilary